A very good friend of mine hotmail account has been scammed. His friends (including myself) have received numerous emails - the latest being the one about him being stranded in Spain requesting finance to be sent to assist.
He has tried contacting hotmail but has had no success. What is the best way to address this and to try and ensure that his hotmail account is protected from such scammers.
Thanks in advance.
Hey Morpheus - Your friend should take the following steps ASAP:
1) Check that their PC is not infected with any malware. Run full/thorough scans with resident security programs, plus with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and SuperAntiSpyware.
2) Change the Hotmail account password. If your friend can access his/her Hotmail account then he/she should sign in and change the existing password to something much stronger.
Preventative measures:
Create a strong password for your Hotmail account
Make sure your operating system has the latest updates
Never reply to emails asking for your Hotmail password
Be careful signing in to your Hotmail account from public computers or unsecure wireless networks
HTH,
Cheers...Jim
[quote="Morpheus":3054o7yh]A very good friend of mine hotmail account has been scammed. His friends (including myself) have received numerous emails - the latest being the one about him being stranded in Spain requesting finance to be sent to assist. [/quote:3054o7yh]
Remain calm Morpheus. It seems someone's account was infected, and their contact list was stolen. The culprit then sends bogus messages to everyone in the contact list, making it seem it's from your trusted friend. Simply ignore and delete. This is just a minor inconvenience.
Now, if you or someone receives a message asking to click onto a link, that's the trigger for the infection. It might be followed by a screen asking you to re-enter your account password, as a security precaution - [b:3054o7yh]DON"T. [/b:3054o7yh]Doing so will steal your contact list and enable the thief access to your account to send the emails. If infected, change your password immediately.
For peace of mind, you should do an anti-virus and anti-malware scan (safer to do so OFFLINE - disconnect from the Internet), but chances are high that only the account was infected by the clicking - so click safely, and above all else, don't click without first thinking, and see where the click will take you, Mindblower!
"For the needy, not the greedy"
I had the very same problem. After I changed my password the spamming stopped. Now, one of my friends email address is sending fake emails. It seams that I probably infected everybody. Bad day to be my friend.I advised everybody in my list to open only messages with a personalized subject area.
Hey coolczone - Did you also scan your computer for malware? If the password is being hacked locally, that is via spyware on your computer, then changing the password is only going to provide a temporary respite - it won't take long for the spyware to retrieve your new password and start all over again.
This is getting to be such a common problem, just serves to emphasize how important it is to select a very strong password in the first place.
Cheers now...Jim
Hi Jim,
I scanned my computer with bitdefender, malwarebytes and superantyspyware. Nothing found.
Ciprian
[quote:25cnikr3]I scanned my computer with bitdefender, malwarebytes and superantyspyware. Nothing found.[/quote:25cnikr3]
Good one - I shouldn't have doubted you Ciprian.
External password hacking is the most common but it never hurts to make doubly sure.
Cheers mate...Jim
Make sure after changing your password that you double check your security questions and answers. I would change these too.
--Zig
Thanks Ziggie, this one is on the go since right now.
Thank you all for your advise I have relayed them to my friend. However he has another problem. upon learning that his mail box had been compromised he panicked and contacted hotmail and asked them to close his account. to re open it they have asked the usual security questions which he has forgotten the answers (he is a retired elderly gentleman). He is desperate to access the old hotmail account as he has some v important contacts. Is there any way of accessing his hotmail account?
If he doesn't know the answers to the security questions then there isn't much luck.
Even if he knew the answers, I'm not sure he would find what he was looking for. Typically when hotmail closes an account, they remove everything -- mail, contacts, etc.
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