Contact list Hacked

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nikonuser

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Dave
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A friend of mine has had her contact list hacked what should she do after doing a full virus scan
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Hi Neil - all her contacts have been sent a message but it has not been sent by her
I don't think it is file to open just a message
She is with hotmail and cannot get into her emails
Any help please
Thanks
Dave
 
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I would select the 'Can't access your account?' link and reset the password to something stronger than it was. This is the exact reason i don't have any contacts stored within my webmail account.
 
Hotmail is rubbish...mine sent out a load of spam mails to my contacts, they thought I'd divulged into selling a product for men with "softness" problems!
 
nikonuser said:
Hi Neil - all her contacts have been sent a message but it has not been sent by her
I don't think it is file to open just a message
She is with hotmail and cannot get into her emails
Any help please
Thanks
Dave
Click to expand...

If she can't get in then her account password has probably been guessed. As someone else said use the "can't access your account" option on the login page.

And if she uses the same password for anything else, change it. To something harder to guess, and not a dictionary word.

Martyn D said:
Hotmail is rubbish...mine sent out a load of spam mails to my contacts, they thought I'd divulged into selling a product for men with "softness" problems!
Click to expand...

It wouldn't just do that unless someone had either spoofed your account or you had an easy password and it was guessed/key logged from malware.

Choose a good strong password. Letters, numbers and symbols (where accepted) and non dictionary words.
 
Thanks Guys, just as an update, since she knew nothing about computers she contacted hotmail and they took control of her PC and cleaned it up malware etc
It cost her £75....apparently they were working on it for more than 2 hours.
Dave
 
That would bother me more than the contacts issue ... are you sure it was kosher?
 
nikonuser said:
Thanks Guys, just as an update, since she knew nothing about computers she contacted hotmail and they took control of her PC and cleaned it up malware etc
It cost her £75....apparently they were working on it for more than 2 hours.
Dave
Click to expand...

As far as I know this isn't a service Microsoft provide. What number did she call exactly?
 
Defo a scam. If Microsoft were to contact and help clear an infected machine, such as in their botnet takedown, they wouldn't make a charge.

She needs to have her machine cleaned up by a reputable local firm, and to do this as a matter of urgency. She also needs to consider the information she had on the computer that may have been compromised.
 
nikonuser said:
Thanks Guys, just as an update, since she knew nothing about computers she contacted hotmail and they took control of her PC and cleaned it up malware etc
It cost her £75....apparently they were working on it for more than 2 hours.
Dave
Click to expand...

err that sounds like a well known scam. where did she get the contact number from exactly? hopefully not from the compremised laptop..

at this point id be cancelling the card she paid with personally and changing all internet passwords (not on the compremised laptop).
 
:agree:
If she paid these folks by credit/debit card, I'd recommend getting that card cancelled. :(
What Neil said. :)
 
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It was hotmail her ISP who did the work
 
nikonuser said:
Hi Neil - all her contacts have been sent a message but it has not been sent by her
I don't think it is file to open just a message
She is with hotmail and cannot get into her emails
Any help please
Thanks
Dave
Click to expand...

I had this happen to me with countless hotmail accounts,
So I deleted all of my contacts to make sure no emails were sent out to anyone again, and got myself a Gmail instead.

Hotmail is awful. :(
 
nikonuser said:
It was hotmail her ISP who did the work
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I mean like super 300% sure?

If her machine is already compromised it wouldn't be hard to put in some phoney contact details. Please tell me she wasn't getting those phoney anti virus alerts too?

Just because there are many many scams where people claim to be from Microsoft (wouldn't be "hotmail" and they're not an ISP) and remote control machines planing more malware and getting the person to give out their credit card details down the phone.
 
A friend of mine was hit by the same scam last week. I received an e mail purportedly from her which was along the lines of "Here is the link I promised you" and including a clickable link.

When I contacted her, she told me several of her pals had contacted her about the same e mail. The link is malicious of course.

BTW, she is not on Hotmail.
 
Firstly cancel the card immediately and notify the bank. Secondly, using a second computer, preferably a family members at a different location start changing any passwords for any accounts that she might have used on the infected machine recently. Thirdly, run a virus scan on the infected machine and then get it wiped and setup again.
 
Nothing wrong with Hotmail, if someone is sending messages from your account then you have a virus on your machine and/or your email account password has been compromised.

I really would reccomend anyone use 2-factor authentication, not fool-proof but does it make much harder to have your account compromised.
 
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