Expert: Brian Benosky - 6/13/2008

Question
Hello,

My Hotmail email account address book has been HIJACKED!  That is, spam emails from MY email address are being sent to ALL people in my contact list.

I contacted my NORTON ANTIVIRUS people and they ran their checks and insist my PC is virus free.  I also contacted Webroot Spysweeper and did their tests and they say the same thing...all is OK on their end.

I contacted my ISP...and they didn't know what to do.

I am contemplating closing my current HOTMAIL account and opening another at HOTMAIL, GMAIL, or COMCAST. OR even creating a domain with a email address at GODADDY.COM.
Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Ron

Answer
Hi Ron

First I would change the password to my Hotmail account.  If someone is actually sending mail from it, then they have broken the password to your account.  If that doesn't stop it, that either means that someone is spoofing your email address (it doesn't sound like that is the case), or possibly someone has indeed hijacked your PC.  If, after changing your password, the attacks continue, please follow the instructions below so that I can check if there are holes somewhere:

Please download TrendMicro HijackThis! from the following link:
http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/threat_analytics/HJTInstall.exe
* Save HJTInstall.exe to your desktop.
* Doubleclick on the HJTInstall.exe icon on your desktop.
* By default it will install to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis.
* Click on Install.
* It will create a HijackThis icon on the desktop.
* Once installed, it will launch Hijackthis.
* Click on the Do a system scan and save a logfile button. It will scan and the log should open in notepad.
* Click on "Edit > Select All" then click on "Edit > Copy" and Paste the entire contents of the log (no attachments) into a follow-up here.

Brian