email has been hacked

Someone has apparently learned how to send emails from my hotmail account. A friend sent me a message saying he thought I had been hacked because he got an email from me saying "I had got my life back in order" which I didn't send. I also have about half a dozen emails with the line about 'dellivery notification failure'. The send to list on each has about a dozen of my contact names and the name of the email that didn't go through. I went to microsoft hotmail help and they said to install an antivirus and change the password. I thought I was covered because I checked here and was told that microsoft security essentials along with the spyware programs like ccCleaner, superantivirus and ad adware would keep this from happening.

Anyway I'm going to install and antivirus and change my pw and see what happens.

It is easy for anyone to "spoof" an email address. I can easily pretend that I'm sending an email from any address I want, regardless of whether it's a legitimate address. However, based on what you explained it looks like your email was actually hacked.

The advice we give here on properly protecting your system is sound, but there is more to the picture than simply whatever security software you have in place. The rest of your security will be affected by that guy in your mirror.

When an email gets hacked, it is more often one or more simple things that's the underlying cause. If you use a weak password you will be at great risk. Also, too many people use the same password everywhere they go.

If you login to various sites with the same email/password combination, then it's only a matter of time before you get hacked. What happens is one of two things: either the site administrators are dirty and abuse the user's profile information, or the site gets hacked because they don't use good security. Then the hacker's use the information to gain access to email accounts.

Poasters is a legitimate site and we NEVER abuse our member's info for any reason. We also keep our site's software up to date, and we use strong passwords. But other sites don't think it's all that important, and they easily get hacked.

Your best bet is to never reuse passwords, and to use STRONG passwords. Do not use consecutive letters/numbers (abcdef / 123456), or easy to guess dictionary words.

I changed my password to a "strong" rating. In the past I never respond to spam email unless it is from something or somebody I've made a request to. I got a spam a couple days ago that really looked legit from FedEx, saying an error had occurred in delivery due to wrong address. I looked at it a long time until I realized I haven't ordered anything that should be coming from FedEx so I deleted it without opening it.

Here is something that is keeping me up. I have had an Android phone for about 6 months. I have my email synchronized with the phone so I get a ring every time a message comes into my account. The sync also includes contacts so I wonder if that is how they got in. Whoever the snake is they sent a weird email to all contacts, every one of them. I have a fantasy of using a baseball bat to hit a home run using this dude's head as the ball. It feels good too.

When you're done batting his head, pass it our way so we can play soccer.

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common event.  I can think of several people I know that use Yahoo. Gmail, and even AOL who have had their account address books hijacked.  AOL was the most recent and addresses were used to advertise a male pharmaceutical. But its likely those sites were attacked, not your machine.  Beyond maintaining your computer's A/V systems, there is not much you can do except staying alert.

Bill

I love the title of this chain: "email has been hacked by Bill."
way to go...

and thanks so much, Scuzzy, for broadcasting my dang password all over the World Wide Web.  Geez Louise.
It took me long enough to come up with abcd1234.  Criminy.

Ace; I hope nobody's using 1234abcd.