GlesgaKiss

My Mum checked her hotmail account yesterday to find a reply from one of her friends asking her about an email she had sent. It turns out that an email has been sent from my Mum's account to a lot of her contacts, obviously without her knowledge.

So is this some kind of virus, or has someone actually signed into her account and sent them that way? It's just spam. The reason I'm inclined to think it isn't a virus is that my Mum isn't daft when it comes to computers. She'd never click on a link in some spam mail, which is the way a lot of these emails are surely sent? Obviously there is nothing in the sent items folder, although they can easily be deleted.

So do you guys reckon it's a program or an actual person that's used the account? She's changed her password now, although I'm wondering if that'll make much difference if it is a virus of some kind.


Cheers

Alan

GazTheHat

A couple of friends with hotmail accounts have also recently had this happen.

Here is the email is received:
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I think this is a nice website,I like it very much.If you have time please browse it.Maybe you can find some products that are suitable for you.Their priciple is :100% original and brand new,100% satisfied! Their address is www.brXXXele.com and E-mail is service@brXXXele.com
Have a good time!


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We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now


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Where XXX = and. Doesn't look like a virus, just a spam.

Geezer

The very same thing happened to me the other week, but it turned out Hotmail had been compromised, as opposed to my PC.

I just changed my password and it's all been ok.

Geezer

GlesgaKiss

Aw right ok. How would the emails be sent from my Mum's account to all her contacts without her knowledge though? That's the bit that's worrying.

GlesgaKiss

That's what I was thinking! Hopefully that's all it is. She has changed her password too.

Miniman

iTrader: (2)

I doubt that Hotmail was compromised itself (that would be big news and reported widely), but it may have been possible to guess her login?

Also possible is malware or a virus and unless you have actually done something to stop it it's still there.

For example I believe that I got some malware recently through a dodgy ad on a torrent web site (you surf the illegal sites you run the risk I suppose). Shortly after being on the web site some emails went out to my Outlook contacts list, not sent by me. I believe this was the entry point to my system (via the dodgy ad) but can't be sure. Note that I did not click on the ad - it was just served to me as any other ad you see on a website.

Not all my contacts received the email (so possibly was reading some old cookies?) and I caught it pretty quickly. A good search with a decent tool revealed the malware. I removed it within a couple of days. AVG did not flag up anything at any time.

More and more exploits are coming out for Internet Explorer and Firefox (and others) so if she accesses Hotmail from a web browser it could be that seemingly innocent action (surfing a known trusted website that also has ad's on), could have allowed something to access her PC while in the Hotmail account.

So she will not have clicked on anything, but still been compromised.

As usual keep apps up to date and install an ad blocker (something I did not have). Keep windows up to date for IE fixes and exploits.

belliott69

iTrader: (3)

somethings going on because its happened to me and 5 of my friends in the last month.

Scooby Soon!

I am pretty sure Hotmail was compromised, chinese hackers I believe. Happened to an account I had as well with an impossible to guess password.

GU5

Yeah happened to me, I was really annoyed about it for a while.

There was this bird at work taking the p*** out of me for clicking on stuff I shouldn't etc, laughing and having a good joke about it etc.

Then a couple of day later she came in all quiet, had happened to her too, did I laugh?



Oh yes

GlesgaKiss

Myles

iTrader: (40)

Check the 'Away on Holiday' settings. Somehow my wife's account was hacked and she was sending all her contacts an ad for some Jap site. It sends something like an out of office auto reply.

Tenby

iTrader: (1)

happend to me 2. scarey as so much of my personal details are in my email account.

Geezer

It was news, that's how I found out about it...........

Geezer

Miniman

iTrader: (2)

Sorry I needed to be clearer - I meant that as far as I know Hotmail was not breached in the last few days as nothing has been reported (unless it's happened in the last couple of days and I missed it - with is likely!).

There have been older breaches with the last in February, so I would have thought that one was plugged by now. I doubt that MS would allow a breach to occur and then not solve the issue or at least prevent anyone exploiting the breach for 3/4 weeks.

I don't know what happened in Feb, but if all the users passwords had been compromised then surely MS would have reset all passwords of those effected. At the very least resetting your own password is a minor annoyance compared to a hacker having free range to your email account, because MS did nothing to stop the breach from being exploited.

Sorry still don't buy it after that long that it was due to a breach at Hotmail/MS that occured in Feb.