Someone has accessed my hotmail address book

H. asked:

Someone/thing has accessed my hotmail address book and appears to have sent messages out under my name (advertising some electronics website).  I noticed as I received one myself and a number of ‘undeliverable’ messages.

There are two possibilities. First, is that what is happening is something called ‘spoofing’…

It may seem strange, but there is nothing on an email to say where it is from, simply a field called “From” which can be filled out with anything you like, so someone can send email messages and put your email address in the “From” field and it looks like they came from you. This can happen to any email address and there is not much than can be done about it.

The second possibility is that someone has gained access to your Hotmail account. If the messages being sent go specifically to people that you know then this is probably what has happened. I certainly know of at least one other case where this has happened. Assuming that you still have access to your Hotmail account, you should change the password and security questions on it, which should hopefully stop the problem. It is important to ensure that your password is a ‘secure’ password, that is unguessable. That means that it is not, for example, a word which is found in an English dictionary or a person’s name.

You can find some advice on creating a memorable secure password here or a program here will create a less memorable but very secure password for you.

Don’t forget to change any security questions too, otherwise the hacker can reclaim your new password via the ‘forgotten password’ mechanisms.

No related posts.