Hotmail hijack?
 

I keep a hotmail account around for various reasons - essentially any junky type mail where it wouldn't matter a great deal if the account was harvested. I find that this works ok, so that my principal email accounts are relatively spam free.

However, I just went in to the client, OE6 and looked in the sent folder & there are emails from me to people not in my address book, flogging Chinese fake designer gear.

So it would seem that someone has got hold of my account & is using it to send spam.

Can I stop this? I obviously don't want the problem. I've scanned with avast & windows defender and although I realise that isn't a comprehensive thing, it finds nothing nasty on the system. It's not the end of the world, just something I've not seen before & would rather not have.

Can't you just change the password?

I have done that now. I'm no email expert, but I have just received 30 delivery failure notifications, so someone's in to the address right enough.

I have seen this before, I have received emails from people I know that have been trying to flog me some Canadian Pharmacies wonder pill!

I am not entirely sure how it works, I was always under the impression that they were just using some kind of email name generator, I did not realise that it actually was sending out from peoples real accounts.

How much can they possible actually ever sell of whatever it is they are trying to sell anyway, who actually reads those emails!

Ant

Hopefully they just guessed your password, probably using some kind of software and you'll be OK now, let us know what happens.

There's a chance you have been "botted". Have a look here:

TrendSecure | Trend Micro RUBotted (Beta)

I use it on both Vista and XP SP3 with no problems

It could also be some form of 'key-logger'. They look for you using your email account username and whatever follows is usually your password. Changing your password may therefore help. This, followed by an in-depth virus scan to remove any 'key-logger' files may fix it.

Nice find seanbean. No bots as it turns out, but that is a handy little tool:ok: You're clearly so much more than just an actor!

Slight thread creep...
 

OK - "thread creep" I know but ... Very often a computers' vulnerability stems from an out of date or unpatched software application for which an exploit has been developed. A (surprisingly little known) tool which helps to address this issue is here:

Download - Personal (PSI) - Vulnerability Scanning - Secunia.com

Highly recommended - I have been using it on a homenetwork (XP SP3 and Vista) for over a year now with no problems/issues. They have just produced RC4. FileHippo produce something similar, but it does not (yet) seem to be as comprehensive.

I am with you sean on the PSI-Secunia. No probs since its use.
Thanks for the Bot info.

Back to Parapunter's point...

Are these spam mails from your hotmail address on your own PC, or on your "online" hotmail account?

If the former, you have a nasty in your PC.

If the latter, change your password - or dump the hotmail account.
Googlemail has a lot going for it...

It was online & a change of password fixed it. Googlemail is fine provided you don't mind all you write being viewed by whoever has a whim at Google.