Increase in hacked hotmail accounts?

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but as it seems to be specifically affecting Hotmail/Windows Live accounts, I hope it's OK to post this here.

Has anyone else noticed an increase in spam emails purportedly from friends but actually sales spam from hacked Hotmail email accounts? The emails have been sent to everyone in that person's address book.

I've had three such emails in the past couple of weeks, and as I use a hotmail account for most of my personal emails (just because that's the first email addy I had and it's been easier to keep it) I'm just waiting for it to happen to mine too.

I found this on the Windows Live Help page, article dated the end of April.

I'd be interested to know if it's happened to anyone else.

Yup, that has happened to me recently

But not sure if it was a case of a worm/trojan on my home PC, but perhaps more likely that just my hotmail account was hacked into, and then the emails were sent using another PC

In reply to a post by Tony76:

Yup, that has happened to me recently

Sorry to hear that

In reply to a post by Tony76:

But not sure if it was a case of a worm/trojan on my home PC, but perhaps more likely that just my hotmail account was hacked into, and then the emails were sent using another PC

If so, would just changing the password be sufficient to lock the hacker/s out?

I've deleted all non-personal contacts from my address book just in case it happens to me - one thing explaining to friends, but sending spam to doctors, businesses etc is another thing entirely.

I was hacked into a couple of months ago. My own fault - a very weak password set up 10 years ago (before the hackers got busy) and never changed. Now have a strong password and all seems OK.

Edited by ffox (Sat 11-Jul-09 07:06:41)

In reply to a post by ffox:

I was hacked into a couple of months ago. My own fault - a very weak password set up 10 years ago (before the hackers got busy) and never changed. Now have a strong password and all seems OK.

That's reassuring (though sorry you got hacked). My hotmail password is a)strong, and b)unique to my hotmail account.

Can't believe how many people that I've spoken to with hotmail accounts told me they've received spam emails from hacked accounts in the last couple of months or so. Makes me wonder if it's some sort of deliberate attack on Microsoft (paranoia alert!)

Messenger and therefore Hotmail etc details are usually acquired via a type of phish. A user is offered some incentive or other such as free emoticons, directed to a website and then asked to enter their logon details so that the merchandise can be sent.
Of course, once they have the details of one account, they know exactly who to spam via it's contact list. And, given that many users of the Messenger type services aren't really security savvy and use weak passwords, gaining access to other account details is a fairly simple matter.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

Messenger and therefore Hotmail etc details are usually acquired via a type of phish. A user is offered some incentive or other such as free emoticons, directed to a website and then asked to enter their logon details so that the merchandise can be sent.
Of course, once they have the details of one account, they know exactly who to spam via it's contact list. And, given that many users of the Messenger type services aren't really security savvy and use weak passwords, gaining access to other account details is a fairly simple matter.

Accepted, but at least one of the people I know that got hacked doesn't fit that profile at all. And it doesn't explain why hotmail accounts are affected rather than yahoo ones, for example.

But I take your general point.

I recieve alot of spam, but with gmail I can filter emails that contain certain words. So don't email me with the words Ching or wang in it as I won't get it!

It seems that this is probably a dedicated attack against Messenger/Hotmail/WL users although it may well be that the sheer numbers of users are obfuscating reports of attacks against Yahoo and AIM etc.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

it may well be that the sheer numbers of users are obfuscating reports of attacks against Yahoo and AIM etc.

Fair point