Recently my girlfriend went on holiday and came back to find her Hotmail address hacked. This is pretty serious and I wondered if anyone knew of a "current hack" or any "news from the underground" that would point to a keylogger or some sort of virus that was effecting other Hotmail accounts, e.g. not just hers, and if Microsoft knew of any current attacks on Hotmail addresses.

It could be that someone has managed to guess her secret question and knows enough about her to input sensitive data in order to get access to the account "legally" and then change the password, but this seems far fetched and I doubt it....

In case it's of any use - the secret question she is now asked to answer is: "your first car"

Surely if you were writing yourself a secret question would you not phrase it as "my first car".

This is another reason to be suspicious of some sort of trojan attack, and not simply someone who got lucky..... has any one else ever had a Hotmail hacked, and the question changed to anything to do with a car? I read on a page something about the question being changed to: "the colour of your car".

This is a stab in the dark but it's my last hope on trying to "fix" her email address, what else can be done except keep trying to "guess" the new secret question?

thanks guys

PS this is kinda urgent, and I hope someone out there has experience in a Hotmail hack?

PPS in case anyone is worried about me being genuine, I am not trying to attain information on how to hack anyone's email, but am simply trying to rescue a hacked address thanks.

__________________
HOOD

i made a mistake in last post - the questions that can be asked by hotmail to provide secret Q and A are predefined, eg you cant chose your own question - but only your own answer
so
"your favourite car"
is a standard question to answer

this narrows things down,
someone who knows her could have managed to guess her password, then chage it, and the secret question

OR a virus/trojan has managed the hack = unlikely

or some one with a keylogger etc has managed to attain the pw and un and change details


plz plz plz anyone help, its quite important i help my GF get access into her acount again, as someone that has "stolen" an email address could have quite a lot of power i presume, eg they could pretend to be her and get her into all sort of trouble, messing about with passwords, ebay, other people , etc etc, the oppurtunities are limitless when you pretend to be someone else by using their email,,,,, surely she could sign up for numerous things, online account etc, especially if the attacker knows my GF address phone number DOB etc,,,,,,,,,,,, which they most likely do if they wer able to obtain her UN and PW

HELP

__________________
HOOD

Just out of curiosity, how does she know it was hacked? Is she not able to log in or what? Doesn't Hotmail have a way to contact the admin and change the settings? What about clicking the "forgot my password" link?

I don't use Hotmail so I'm not sure how their system works. I do know that they have issues w/ security and losing personal data. IMHO, I'd recommend your GF get a new email account w/ Yahoo or Gmail. If she can get into Hotmail she could just forward everything over.

__________________
Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

i know it has been hacked bcause her password no longer works,
also the secrect question that you are asked has been changed, so she cannot answer it in order to retrieve her password eg in case she forgot it.,... this can only be done by signing in and then changing it
i know hotmail is not 100% secure, but none are
the only reason people acuse it of being less secure than others is because it has widespread usage it is obviously an easy target. the same as the windows/linux comparison really.
linus is no more secure than windows, people dont take advantage of its security holes etc because its not worth while as not enough people use it, eg no virus would spread on linux as it is not used enough - the same goes for hotmail, people will always hack it because so many people use it
anyway enough of that.... how can she prove that her hotmail address belongs to her to some random admin person at hotmail staff if she cant even prove she knows her secret question or password?!?
now you see the predicament we are in...........?

By the way, "stealing someones identity" can lead to quite serious crime,,,, could a stolen email address potentially lead to this sort of thing in the wrong hands? i think so,,,,,,,,,,,,,

__________________
HOOD

Have you/she tried contacting Hotmail support? http://hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/dasp/...=en&country=us

__________________
Web Hosting Tips | Career Advice

Thanks for that advice, I had not attempted that, have just contacted them - telling them the situation etc., I await with baited breath...

__________________
HOOD