MSN/Hotmail account sending out spam e-mails
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MSN/Hotmail account sending out spam e-mails
Ok I need help. I have a hotmail e-mail account and access it from various computers. But over the past 3 months or so it has starting sending out spam e-mails to all my contacts.
So I deleted all my contacts and it is still doing it. Needless to say everyone is getting a bit upset getting e-mails from me about drug stores and making money working from home!!!
What can I do to stop this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
So I deleted all my contacts and it is still doing it. Needless to say everyone is getting a bit upset getting e-mails from me about drug stores and making money working from home!!!
What can I do to stop this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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What can I do to stop this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It may just be a case of someone impersonating your email address but sending the mail through non-hotmail servers, which is very common.
It may be a case of someone having guessed your password and hence using your account for spam (less common), in which case you should obviously change your password (a good thing to do once in a while anyway).
It's one of the downsides of using free webmail services such as Hotmail. They're the most heavily targeted places by spammers.
Long term answer is to swiftly make and put in place plans to change your email address.
You should also email any messages you are aware of to [email protected] ..... but don't expect them to fix anything.
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Your address is probably being spoofed, and the e-mail isn't coming from Hotmail at all. The only way to check this is by looking at the actual internal message headers. Since Hotmail has only a Web interface, it isn't susceptible to viruses and malware, and so it wouldn't be sending e-mails out in your name on its own. Unfortunately, it's very easy to spoof the sender in e-mail. And just as unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it.
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Well thanks for your prompt resposne, I appreciate it but oh bother!!!! (please feel free to insert any other stronger word!!) I was hoping it could be fixed. I guess the easiest thing might be to shut it down totally.
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Even shutting down the account might not help. Somehow, your list of Hotmail contacts found its way to a computer or person who creates spam. That's already done, so deleting the Hotmail account won't prevent the existing list of contacts from being used for spamming, nor will it prevent someone from spoofing your Hotmail address.
You can tell all your contacts that e-mail spam is being sent to them outside of your control. You can change your e-mail address and ask your contacts to simply filter out anything from the old Hotmail address. These are just workarounds, though. The spam is likely to keep coming.
You can try changing your Hotmail password, in case some person or bot is signing on to your account and sending spam to your contact list. You can scan your own computer carefully for any viruses or other malware that might be using your computer to send e-mail to your Hotmail contact list without your knowledge.
These days I have a long list of filters that examine my incoming e-mail, as I get several thousand spam messages per day. Sender addresses that are in my address book get through, and usually that's not a problem. However, I started getting weird spam from someone who was in my address book a few weeks ago, and since I had no easy way to authenticate e-mail from her and had not received any legitimate e-mail in a long time, I reluctantly had to drop her from the address book. It's not frequent but it happens.
You can tell all your contacts that e-mail spam is being sent to them outside of your control. You can change your e-mail address and ask your contacts to simply filter out anything from the old Hotmail address. These are just workarounds, though. The spam is likely to keep coming.
You can try changing your Hotmail password, in case some person or bot is signing on to your account and sending spam to your contact list. You can scan your own computer carefully for any viruses or other malware that might be using your computer to send e-mail to your Hotmail contact list without your knowledge.
These days I have a long list of filters that examine my incoming e-mail, as I get several thousand spam messages per day. Sender addresses that are in my address book get through, and usually that's not a problem. However, I started getting weird spam from someone who was in my address book a few weeks ago, and since I had no easy way to authenticate e-mail from her and had not received any legitimate e-mail in a long time, I reluctantly had to drop her from the address book. It's not frequent but it happens.
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As previously said, nothing you can do about it, deleting changing you email address will stop nothing. The source of your address may even have come from one of your friends.
If you used the Farce book find friends utility which uses your email account and address book to find friends, the the leak may have come from there. Never give your email password to any one for any reason.
If you used the Farce book find friends utility which uses your email account and address book to find friends, the the leak may have come from there. Never give your email password to any one for any reason.
I found it easier to delete my 'Hotmail contacts' completely and to add my Hotmail address to Outlook Express as another e-mail account, using pop3.live.com as the incoming server through port 995 (SSL) and smtp.live.com as the outgoing server via port 587 (SSL). Works fine - the only time I use the webmail system is to check/empty the junk mail store every so often.
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Sounds like you have fallen for the see who has blocked you on MSN scam, that was used to harvest MSN/Hotmail accounts and passwords.
You will need to change your password and secret question/answer
You will need to change your password and secret question/answer
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Once the horse has bolted, there's not much you can do with the stable door.
I ditched my hotmail account long ago, but it only had one address in its address book - one of my own that I set up to "test". That got spam.
Simple rule: never upload your address book anywhere - especially not to "social" sites like Hotmail or Facethingy.
I ditched my hotmail account long ago, but it only had one address in its address book - one of my own that I set up to "test". That got spam.
Simple rule: never upload your address book anywhere - especially not to "social" sites like Hotmail or Facethingy.
