Omlet Smart Autodoor - New in box

[xChicken04x]

Hi All, I'm in need of some help. I just got a call from my Dad asking about my new ipod . I ask him what he means, as I haven't got a new ipod, he tells me that I emailed him yesterday about how fantastic it is and where I got it from (some dodgy website apparently).

Anyway, I also got a couple of texts from friends, asking me to stop sending all these emails as their getting rather annoying now. I hadn't sent any emails to them.

 

So, it looks like someone has hacked my account and are sending dodgy emails from my address . I have looked at my 'sent' box and there is nothing but the emails I have actually sent.

 

Any ideas what to do now???

 

Oh, I have just had a thought- if they can access my account, then can they read the emails I receive??? If so, I could be in serious trouble, as I have numerous Amazon and eBay emails with details of my orders. Oh dear. I really can't be dealing with this today- I have one very sick chook that needs to see a vet and guests are arriving in 3 hours .

 

Any help, please???

 

P.s The email account is a Hotmail one.

Edited January 28, 2010 by Guest

[Griffin]

Contact Hotmail and ask them for help. I couldn't fault them whem my email account was hacked, they were really helpful, they changed my password for me (the hacker had changed it so I couldn't even access my account) and within 24 hours it was all fixed. When you get your account back you'll need to change your password to something long and with numbers, lower case, upper case etc etc to make it harder for anyone else to access your account. It'd be a good idea to change your password on all other accounts, forums etc.

[patsylabrador]

All I can tell you is that I often get scam type emails from two of my son's who have hotmail accounts, so I think it happens a lot. I don't think they use them any more.

[C&T]

Change your password quickly.

[xChicken04x]

Thanks Guys, heres the next stupid question- How do I change my password???

[majorbloodnock]

OK, this is a good point to calm down and take stock a bit before doing anything rash.

 

The first step of changing your password is sensible, especially since it risks nothing (although, not having used hotmail, I can't tell you exactly how to do it).

 

The next step is to try to find out if the emails really did come from your account, and that's far from certain. Certainly Hotmail's support team will be able to look through their logs and see traffic generated by your email account, so they're your best first call. An alternative, if one of your friends who's received any of these emails is enough of a techie, is to look at the mail header for one of the emails they've been sent. Here's some instructions on how to do it if they're confident enough.

 

Basically, the headers are a set of hidden fields in the email that give information about it. It includes things like who really sent it (the sender field), who to display as the sender (the from field, and the two don't need to match), where the email came from originally (one of the Recieved fields) and so on. If you legitimately send the same person an email, you could compare and contrast the two sets of headers to see any differences (or pm me with them and I can take a quick look for you). If they're basically the same, your account may well have been hacked, but if, as is more likely, the sender names are different, your account is probably safe and someone's just masquerading as you by manipulating the email address being shown on the email, and that's incredibly easy to do.

 

In fact, if you want to PM me anyway, I'm happy to help

[Happy-Mama]

MBN I think this is what has happened to one of my hotmail accounts too, the masquerading thing, is there anything that can be done about it? I was going to close the account but would love to be able to avoid the hassle.

 

Hope you don't mind me asking the question on your thread chicken04

[majorbloodnock]

To be honest, there's very little that can be done about someone displaying someone else's email address except trying to stop them getting it in the first place. It is, in fact, almost exactly the same as the snail mail equivalent.

 

An example. Imagine an unscrupulous person received a letter from their bank. What's to stop them copying the format (a scanner will give them the logo for the letterhead, they've got the bank's name and address for the address block, and they've the name of a legitimate employee of the bank in the signature to add to the authentic look of it all), changing the wording of the body of the letter to something more insidiously exploitable, then send it off to someone else who banks with the same establishment? If they do that, the new recipient is likely to think the bogus letter came from the bank, and probably act accordingly.

 

Nothing different with emails. Moreover, emails are often sent to several people at once and then forwarded. Therefore, it's easy to see how a complete stranger could see that you legitimately forwarded a joke to half a dozen of your friends, and what those friends' email addresses are. If that stranger creates an email appearing to have your email address as the sender and then sends it to those half dozen friends, are they likely to think it's really you? Too right, they will.

 

And this is all so far without even starting looking at hacked accounts, viruses that harvest email addresses and applications that crawl web sites looking for email addresses and/or telephone numbers. Factor those in and you'll see there's a huge potential for email abuse, which is why it's estimated that less than 10% of all internet email is legitimate.

 

HOWEVER....

 

Most ISPs take at least some steps to filter email. Almost all will scan emails for viruses before you receive them, but many will also carry out tests to decide how likely it is that a given email is spam and, if so, do something with it. Not all ISPs are equal, so some will let through an email that others would stop. Nonetheless, I'm afraid there's no silver bullet here; as soon as you publicise your email address to anyone, you run the risk of it being used in fake emails, and the wider it's publicised the greater the risk.

 

Of course, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread, it's still sensible to make sure such nuisance emails are indeed originating elsewhere and aren't being sent via your account, hence the chat with (in this case) Hotmail being high up on the to do list.

[majorbloodnock]

I should also add that in the grand scheme of things, someone faking emails from you is hugely more likely than a hacked account. I don't recommend complacency, but I do recommend not getting panicky until you've just cause. Just check with Hotmail to verify there actually is a problem before taking more drastic action.

[Alis girls]

Some one accessed all my friends things on her computer and she was told not to use it. The company who was trying to sort it rang and asked her to stop using to which she said she wasnt - to which they replied someone was accessing adult type things. Cue for her to look at ES who had just walked in from school and ask him if he;d been in early . Poor lad hadnt a clue what she was on about and it was obvious someone had got access to everything. its a nightmare. We had a giggle about her poor bewildered son - she didnt tell him why she was asking

[Happy-Mama]

Thanks MBN. Only one email (that I am aware of) was sent to all my contacts, thankfully everyone knew it wasn't me as I was in labour at the time lol...

But I have been signed up to things like facebook and twitter but I contacted them and they removed the accounts so not a problem just seemed very strange to me...

 

ooh that sounds worrying nochooksyet did they manage to get it all sorted?

[Old Speckled Hen]

This happens a lot with hotmail. I'd abandon it and get a googlemail account

[xChicken04x]

Thanks Guys, I have changed my password, so will see how things go. If it happens again I will contact hotmail, or close the account all together. I would really rather not delete it, as I have a lot of very important emails on there, that will take forever to save.

[Geoid]

Thanks Guys, I have changed my password, so will see how things go. If it happens again I will contact hotmail, or close the account all together. I would really rather not delete it, as I have a lot of very important emails on there, that will take forever to save.

You could always forward those important emails to another address

[xChicken04x]

Hey Guys, thank you for all of your help. I changed my password on my account and so far, no-one has received any dodgy emails from 'me'.

However, I have received next to no emails myself. I usually get notifications from when I post on a GSD forum I'm a member of, or some news letter's I've subscribed too, or from my local Rescue Centre to let me know of any dogs needing homes .

But I have received VERY few, which is odd. I joined another GSD forum last night, they said they would send my log in information within a few minutes, but I have received nothing.

Basically, what I'm saying is, I haven't received emails that I should have . Any ideas why?

 

Thanks for any help

[Cooks]

maybe when they hacked your account they routed your emails to another email address? I cant think of anything else, I have a dog laying on me

[Valkyrie]

We'll need a piccy of those dog eggs.

[Cooks]

nutter

[Happy-Mama]

maybe when they hacked your account they routed your emails to another email address? I cant think of anything else, I have a dog laying on me

 

If they have done this from your account you can fix it by clicking on options/more options/manage account/forward mail to another email account/forwarding and choose do not forward then click on save

We'll need a piccy of those dog eggs.

[Valkyrie]

It sounds a pretty common thing unfortunately with regard to hotmail - my daughter had a similar thing happen the other month. Luckily she was able to alter some passwords - very much like you have already done - but it seems to be working fine now.

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

Hotmail is most easily hacked if you use a word or a string of numbers as your password.

 

Use a compound word password - a password made up of a combination of unrelated words, with numbers in random places in the middle of it. So to make it easier to remember you could use 3 instead of E, 5 instead of S and so on.

 

It doesn't really matter if your address has been spoofed or your account has been hacked. Changing the password as per the above asap is always the most important thing.

 

I married an uber-geek, and he agrees.