i think

its sent dodgy emails out to all my contacts trying to sell electrical goods

nothing in my sent mail

it sure wasn't me

any ideas what has happened or what i can do to stop / prevent this?

i've changed my password

cheers

pretty sure an email can be sent that claims it's from any account without actually hacking it (but I don't REALLY know)

Make sure you change your secret question for email retrieval and the address they send the password too. This is often changed as well to allow them a backdoor back in to your account.

Security software scan for a starters and to be honest if it was me I would email my contact listr with a new hotmail email address and leave the other to die a death.

Might they be getting sent from another email address via yours?

If they're not in your sent items it's quite possible the email comes from a different address, has its header tampered with and has the reply-to field filled with your details. this would not require access to your account to do.

Mine got hacked the other day too, they send a spam email to everyone in my mailing list. They didn't change any details on the account. My own fault for leaving the password simple.

Mine got hacked a couple of years back. Hotmail were as much use as a chocolate teapot, so I just let it die. Told everyone to ignore anything that came from there and set up a new e-mail addy.

Scaredypants has the most plausible explanation.

Apparently, ahem, there is software that allows you to spoof the "from" email address. So I could, ahem, if I had such software send an email to the Queen offering her sexual pleasures from say, Bill Clinton (if I knew both of their addresses).

It's quite easy, er, apparently.

The items will never appear in your sent items folder as they were never sent by you. To the recipient though these spoofed emails are undeterminable from the real thing.

There is substantial fun to be had with such software, but remember people, it is VERY illegal…….

By any chance did it start:

Dear friends:
how are you doing recently?
I am willing to give you a big surprise: http://www.ynchenxi.com
I bought an Apple laptop a week ago from this site….

If so that happened to my missus hotmail account. I googled some portion of the text, and found several how to fix it and who is doing this references….. Maybe even if the text is different in the mails you've been cursed with the same approach will work?

TRIGGAR:

yes it said:

"Hey?good news!
I ordered one black apple iphone 3gs 16gb from this website http://www.convpur.com one weeks ago,today I've got it .Amazing,beyond my imagination, it's genuine and as good as I expected,but much cheaper.I'm pleased to share this good news with you! May all goes well for you.
Martin"

I had a similar thing with yahoo and a not-simple password. One day I noticed spam to my contact list within yahoo. I logged in changed password and it stopped. A few months later I got bored of the new password and changed it back to what it was before (thought it would be safe) and the spam immediately restarted so I presume that ive entered my password into a keylogger somewhere which has kept record of my old password.
I think so long as you change your password and associated details you will be ok.

i got one today, from a guy on here…
i reckon his must have got it.

+1 Ditch the account and get another one.

Why not take the opportunity to move to GMail?

Or go for one of the smaller providers that aren't such a target for hackers and offer nice web-based interfaces as well as full IMAP access, like http://fastmail.fm

There is substantial fun to be had with such software, but remember people, it is VERY illegal…….

Is it?? I used to do this all the time. What law does it break?

I've had a few mails lately from friends with hotmail accounts. They have all started with "Hey . . . . " then it's something along the lines of "I just bought a phone/cd player/whatever at an incredible low price. I got it from http://www.somecrapsite.com etc"

then it ends with "Regards . . ." which none of my frinds EVER say. Usually it's more like "see you later"

What law does it break?

You're potentially impersonating someone. If you do that in a manner to cause offence to either the person you're impersonating or the recipient, it's a crime.

If you do it for reward, it's a crime.

If you do it and don't tell the person you're impersonating, it's a crime.

Sadly I work in IT quality and, it's a crime……

Probably just a spoofed from field but you may as well change your password anyway.

Blah.. I'm pretty sure that impersonation for the purposes of satire is fine.

Also WTF is "IT quality"?

i had mine hacked too.

it was genuinely hacked too as the email was in the 'sent items' folder.

I had logged onto hotmail whilst in thailand, so i'm guessing the computer wasn't secure and had some dodgy key logging software. If you look at the email header (usually hidden) its possible to see the ip address the email was sent from. Mine was sent from some dodgy company in america that hacks online game accounts and sells them on (so you can skip ahead in a game like 'World Of Warcraft' etc..).

Also WTF is "IT quality"?

An impossible dream if most of my projects are to be believed…..

I think this:

WindowsLiveHelp

Was the advice on how to get rid of the one I saw – yours sounds similar. Look at the pages linked to in the reply that was posted – basically virus check/remove and then change the password

BOLLOX – i've just realised that all my contacts are missing!!!!!! i've got some email addresses in recently used but most have gone – thats fekkin annoying

👿

oh – cheers all for the tips

i thought only girls used hotmail?

I had the same in my sent folder, i generally only access from work which has v strong security and the password is a beast – is gmail supposed to be more secure?