User profile for user: jyoungmom
jyoungmom Author
User level: Level 1
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Hotmail account hijacked???

Hi. I am new to this forum and I hope someone can help me. I opened up my Hotmail account today and found 12 undeliverable messages to people on my contact list that contained spam from China. Someone has hijacked my Hotmail account (I think) and sent this to everyone on my list. At least 6 of my contacts opened the message and infected their own computer and contact lists. I know this because the same spam was sent back to me via one of their email addresses. My husband (a diehard PC user) insists that there is a worm on my computer that has caused this problem and believes that I probably got it from an infected email (I am extremely careful what I open. I do not take/use my MacBook outside of my home and we have firewalls installed on my computer and on our home network. I suspect my account was hijacked when (during a two day power outage) I accessed my hotmail account at the public library (I logged out of my account & cleaned the browser history).

Is it possible that I do indeed have a worm installed on my computer? Has this happened to anyone else and does anyone know how to make it stop? I am concerned because it appears that I have transferred this mess to many, many people including hundreds of people on a contact list from my daughter's dance school. I have changed my hotmail password and security question but I am concerned that there may be something on my computer that could jeopardize the financial info on our network. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Posted on Aug 12, 2009 3:08 PM

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9 replies
User profile for user: BDAqua
BDAqua
User level: Level 10
250,385 points

Aug 12, 2009 3:25 PM in response to jyoungmom

Hello jyoungmom, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

Not likely you have a worm, or even likely that they were sent from your Mac.

Email addies are faked all the time, you just have to send an eMail to one infected Windows® PC and that'll start the ball rolling.

I really think the contact list came from elsewhere, unless you put them all in the To: or CC: box.

Are you running any MS APPs like entourage, Word, Excell, Outlook?
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User profile for user: jyoungmom
jyoungmom Author
User level: Level 1
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Aug 12, 2009 5:25 PM in response to BDAqua

The only thing from MS that I run is the Silverlight media player which I downloaded a few weeks ago. I actually don't like Word, Excel, or Outlook (much to my husband's dismay!)

I am not really computer savvy so I don't quite understand how my sending an email to an infected PC could have caused this. Wouldn't someone need to have my password to accomplish this? I did not put the contact list into the To or CC box but the spam was sent to every single contact I have. The only thing I have done differently is access my Hotmail account from the public library two days ago. My son thinks I could have clicked on an infected link or attachment in an email from someone I know and passed it on, possibly harming their PC's.

Is there anything I can do to prevent it from happening again? Will this spam just pass through the email chain?

Thanks for the help!
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User profile for user: BDAqua
BDAqua
User level: Level 10
250,385 points

Aug 12, 2009 6:39 PM in response to jyoungmom

Is there nobody else that has the same mailing list?

My son thinks I could have clicked on an infected link or attachment in an email from someone I know and passed it on, possibly harming their PC's.


If you want to see get ClamXAV, free Virus scanner...

http://www.clamxav.com/

The only thing I have done differently is access my Hotmail account from the public library two days ago.


Slight possibility there, but once those addies are in the wild here's nothing that can be done.

I don't think it's anything on your Mac.
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User profile for user: Macie-G4
Macie-G4
User level: Level 1
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Aug 12, 2009 6:48 PM in response to jyoungmom

It is possible that the library computer was infected before you used it. It then sent your login info to the person who infected it. That person could then log into your account and send the virus to all your contacts. Now that you changed your password, your hotmail account should be safe.

I seriously doubt that your Mac is infected. OS X is very different from Windows... a Windows virus will not affect OS X and visa versa. Since Window is what 98% of computers run, that is what most viruses are made to infect.

The infecter might spoof your e-mail address (use your email address as the from address even though a different account is actually sending the email), but basically the damage has been done and there isn't much you can do about it.

To keep this from happening in the future you should only use computers or Wi-Fi networks that are known to be safe if you are doing anything online that requires a password.
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User profile for user: jyoungmom
jyoungmom Author
User level: Level 1
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Aug 12, 2009 7:52 PM in response to BDAqua

The irony is that I used to work at this library and know that the tech guys work very hard to keep this kind of thing from happening. I thought I was safe since I was using their computer, not my MacBook. That's why I doubted my husband's diagnosis.

I have checked the Hotmail Support site and it appears that this has been happening to many people (several discussions from today and yesterday). Hotmail says it's malware and the problem is on my end. I doubt this because I have 2 hotmail accounts and only one is doing this.

Thanks everyone!
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Hotmail account hijacked???

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