Email used for spam...what to do? PANICKING.

The Last Gent

I'm not too tech-savvy first off. I hope this is a common internet problem, and the solution is simple, I've never had it until now. I'm a little bit panicky.

So the last couple weeks, i receive spam emails from some addresses I'm vaguely connected to, with the subject line "Re: Hi," about visiting some place for electronics. I open the first one, figure it out, then delete the others when they happen to come. I can't remember but I may have opened one of the others, "Re: Hi" is a decieving message.

So I sign into my Hotmail just now, to see a ton of "delivery status failure" messages in my inbox. Also my hotmail's suddenly in vacation status. When I check the vacation status, sure enough, my email also sent out the message about the electronics store. When I check my sent folder, EVERY name on my contact list was sent the message.

So, my email was somehow commandeered and used to send this spam, with a possible virus, to other people.

What the hell do i do? I'm not the most tech savvy like I said, so I really don't know. Does my email have a virus? Will it keep spamming people? If so can I make it stop? Will my computer get infected? Will other areas of my personal life get hacked? What can I do here? Who do I report to?

Basically, where do I go from here?

Noquar

To be safe i'd find another computer, log in to your hotmail, and change all security related info and your password, report it to MS. Then, use a thumbdrive or external drive and download 2-3 anti-spyware like AdAware and Spybot. Install them on your original machine and start scanning. Next steps are dictated by what/if it finds.

Fireflash

I had this happen on one of my emails recently. Changing my password seems to have stopeed the spamming completely.

darthmix

Yeah, don't panic, first off. And do everything Noquar says.

Here's why don't panic: it sounds like you've been logging into hotmail directly through the website, and not using an email client program like outlook. Right? Most viruses that take over email accounts do so through Outlook and other similar programs; I've never heard of a virus that can install itself on your computer and talk to the email server, send spam, etc., without the help of a client program that's effectively always logged in. What this means is that this is probably a phishing-type thing and not a virus-type thing. That's bad, but it's bad in a way that doesn't involve some piece of malware being installed on your computer. It just means someone has your password. Most likely that first email you got was them testing your account; after it didn't bounce back, they knew the email address they had was a real one, and then they used a brute-force program to crack your password.

That's what seems most likely to me, anyway. But definitely to the adware checks and the virus check anyway, after you've changed your password, and your security question, and alerted hotmail, etc.

The Last Gent

Ok...thanks. I'll get right on it.

The Last Gent

24 hours and a password change later, no trouble. I think I'm done here, thanks a bunch.

DiscoZombie

Cool - hope you ran an antivirus and anti-malware program or two to be safe though. You don't want the virus stealing your NEW password.

Belketre

Probably not a compromise of your hotmail account at all. I can send an email from any address I like if I have a mail server.

Szechuanosaurus

Belketre wrote: »

Probably not a compromise of your hotmail account at all. I can send an email from any address I like if I have a mail server.

The emails were showing up in his sent folder, so I think that pretty muh conclusively proves that his password was cracked.

FYI, I recommend changing your password on any other accounts that use the same password as your email and ALSO change your passwords on any accounts attached to that email (eg if the password recovery for your PA account is set to be sent to that hotmail account etc).

Crovaxan

well last night i had this same thing happen to me. I changed my password on the same computer. So i guess i should follow those steps earlier. However one of the persons that got spammed just sent one back to me.