My wife's hotmail account has been comprmised today.

I'm scanning the pc she uses at the moment, but it doesn't appear to have a virus. Password was moderately secure - 6chars (word) + 2 digits but i got an email (as did everyone else in her contacts).

Judging by the contacts sent to, it was the web version that was used.

Other than change the password, any ideas?

Easy to guess personal questions on the password reset screen?

Use random characters and mix of upper/lower case.

Ie:

B34thxlive

Bots can scan names and words then bolt on 2 numbers before or after. Many people have this as the min.

As gadgetman said, a secure password will include upper and lower case letters, numbers and other characters such as %&*"£#

Sadly man sites dont support characters, or seem to until you try an log back in again

As gadgetman said, a secure password will include upper and lower case letters, numbers and other characters such as %&*"£#

thanks for that, although I knew that as I work in IT. Unfortunately my wife

My question was more that someone has sent 1 mail to all the contacts and then left it at that. There's no personal info in her profile and whilst the password would be weak if you knew my wife well, it shouldn't have been particulary ease to guess. I was just wondering if this was a one off, or something wider was happening?

Hacker groups are having fun with Hotmail lately.

Ask Jack Straw

My manager has recently ditched his hotmail account after it was comprmised. Similar, someone sent email to his contacts. He has now moved to gmail. Seems to be a lot of it about at the mo.

Account hacking is rife at the moment, and although MS will probably not publicly admit it, their hotmail servers are 'too busy' authenticating a lot these days :(

got a wireless network? even the best protocols are cracked now... u can use a tool like SIW if u can get near the computer itself to retrieve hotmail/ebay passwords...

otherwise ide be tempted to say spyware/malware

What kind of message was it? She hasn't joined one of those 'social networking' sites that asks for your hotmail address and password so it can 'scan' it to see if any of your friends are networking as well?

She might not have been hacked. One of her pals might have been infected with a virus and virus might have chosen your wife's email address to use as the 'from'. That might account for the similar addresses getting hit. Does the sent items show anything?

Scan your machine for viruses and spyware just in case. There might be a keylogger present. Stay clear of shopping sites and online banking until you are sure the machine is clean.

Get her to change all her passwords not just MS. Most people use the same password for multiple sites so it might not be Hotmail that was compromised.

IMHO find another known clean PC and change all the passwords, then format and reinstall the other PC before using it at all.

Also make sure all online banking has everything pin, passwrod and familiar date or whatever other questions they ask changed.

got a wireless network? even the best protocols are cracked now... u can use a tool like SIW if u can get near the computer itself to retrieve hotmail/ebay passwords...

otherwise ide be tempted to say spyware/malware

Nobody round me would hack my wireless - they'd have to be sat on my land to do it

She might not have been hacked. One of her pals might have been infected with a virus and virus might have chosen your wife's email address to use as the 'from'. That might account for the similar addresses getting hit. Does the sent items show anything?

Scan your machine for viruses and spyware just in case. There might be a keylogger present. Stay clear of shopping sites and online banking until you are sure the machine is clean.

Get her to change all her passwords not just MS. Most people use the same password for multiple sites so it might not be Hotmail that was compromised.

The sent items showed the message

had I not known se was out at the time it was sent, I'd have thought she'd done it.

plus it was only the one message (to all her contacts, but only the ones on the web based client, not the ones on the PC)

PC Scanned etc and nothing found, all passwords changed