OT-An Appology, and a Computer Question

[slimster]

My daughter called me today and informed me that my hotmail account has apparently been hacked, and she has been recieving a bunch of spam e-mails. I know that I have some of you here on my contacts list. If anyone has recieved any wierd stuff from or linked to me, please accept my sincere appologies. I have changed my password. Is there anything else that I could do to prevent this from continuing? Thanks guys.

[oic0]

Two ways to have a password stolen:

1: You gave it to them by entering in to something on the internet that was set up as a fake website or other trap. Browser exploit etc...
or
2: They have a program on your computer that took it. Keylogger etc...


Free stuff:

Programs to clean off a potential infection:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Antivirus + firewall (limits what on your computer has internet privileges, would stop a keylogger from phoning home)
http://download.comodo.com/cis/download ... taller.exe

There are others but those are the two I usually use. No better no worse, just personal preference. A google search could turn up dozens of other free options as well.

I would also advise not using internet explorer as your main web browser if that is what you are using. There are a lot of options on that front.
Chrome
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/la ... html?hl=en
Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Opera
http://www.opera.com/
etc....


When you are safe and secure, computer all good and clean, I would change every password that is to something important. Netflix, ebay, gunbroker, etc... Anything that could hit you momentarily. If you arent having any luck getting yours clean or dont have the time, do it from another computer you know to be clean.

[Blaine]

I used to get that stuff, but since I've been using the paid version of AVG, I've either been lucky, or it works really well.

There are lots of bad places out there....carefull what you byte on..hindsite is 20-20.

[AmBraCol]

And it may not even be your hotmail account was hacked. It could be someone has a virus on their computer that is harvesting e-mails from their address book. In this case, it would be someone that knows both you and your daughter in all probability. There's a LOT to be said for NOT using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express (or any Microsoft programs, for that matter) to handle your e-mail or other computing needs. They are too easily hacked and once they are then it's grief for anyone in your e-mail address book.