Hotmail account sending spam to my address book

hypervalve

Hello all,

Encountered a problem with my hotmail account last night. I was logged in at the time and my inbox suddenly started filling with delivery failure notifications to out of date contacts in my address book. Also got a couple of messages from contacts informing of spam mail that they received from my account.

I'd obviously like to get to the bottom of this and figure out what's going on. I've run a Malware Bytes full scan and it didn't detect anything, next I'm going to run Avast and see if that comes up with anything.

A couple of points:

The spam mail is not in my sent items folder

May not be connected but I noticed a new program highlighted in my start menu, "Windows PowerShell ISE" I did not install it. Checked the properties and it was created on the 24th, 3 days before the spam was sent

I changed my password and security question today

I have the header of the spam mail, what relevant information in this could explain what happened?

Does this sound this familiar to anyone? Could anyone advise me on the best course of action to resolve this issue? Many thanks.

deecom

Hi,

Have had this too, im not sure how it works but changing my password seemed to stop it.

Skuxx

had the same problem and I changed my password which stopped it. I changed the password back again a few weeks later and it started again!!

hypervalve

I ran a Windows Live OneCare safefty scan overnight with the following results:



The scanner failed to remove them. Would these be connected with the aforementioned spam problems and any recommendations on my next move? How do I get rid of them?

Thanks

francois

try clearing your java cache
Click Start->Control Panel->Java->Settings->Delete Files

Delete all yout temp internet files as well

re-run your scan

xoxyx

This happened to a girl I used to know years ago and who obviously still had me in her Hotmail contacts list. Along with myself and a number of other people, the spam message was sent to a number of members of Alcohol Anonymous. Felt so sorry for her - that was the last thing she probably needs being broadcast to everyone who is in her address book - kind of negates the anonymous part!

So, be warned, clear out your address book frequently!!!

old_aussie

xoxyx wrote: »

So, be warned, clear out your address book frequently!!!

What good will that do? Spam will still be sent.

It's a trojan on the PC that's sending out spam, or someone knows the users password, or both

old_aussie

Download Malwarebytes, update and then run Malwarebytes in safe mode.(F8)

xoxyx

old_aussie wrote: »

What good will that do? Spam will still be sent.

No. But it will prevent people who you have no need to have in your contact list getting emails - avoiding potential embarrassment as in the case I mentioned.