Mrs R had her email addy hacked into and basically stolen 18 months ago.

Messages being sent to everyone on her mailing list containing a dodgy link

 

We couldn't do much about it as the hacker had changed the password, so we had to ignore it and get her a new email address which caused much messing about.

 

This was an AOhelL addy, but we've since binned them and are now on Virgin.

 

All has been quiet up until  yesterday when another barrage of spammy emails arrived to me and all her contacts.

 

I rang AOL up to ask them could they delete the email address, but they said no, only I could do that by deleting the account....which being an I.T. nugget, I duly did.

 

Seems by doing this I've deleted all her files, pictures...everything basically..

I'm not extremely popular at the mo, but I do have my friendly geeky man  coming out tomorrow to see if he can re-instate some of the stuff I've unwittingly deleted.

 

Apparently, the email addy will and can still be used by the hacker.

I realise this now now I've thought about it, DOH!

Edited 3 April, 201412 yr by Mr Ree

You have deleted the account from the computer, doing this does not delete the email account. With XP when you delete the account the profile directory is also deleted, so all the documents/photos/music etc. will all be gone unless you have a backup on an external drive or USB stick. The chances of anyone getting anything back are very small, and this will continue to deminish the more you use the computer.

 

You should have told AOL you no longer have the account, its been compromised and they should disable or remove it after asking you some questions which you'll need to answer correctly.

You have deleted the account from the computer, doing this does not delete the email account. With XP when you delete the account the profile directory is also deleted, so all the documents/photos/music etc. will all be gone unless you have a backup on an external drive or USB stick.

 

You should have told AOL you no longer have the account, its been compromised and they should disable or remove it after asking you some questions which you'll need to answer correctly.

 

Don't think there was too much important stuff in her files tbh.

Neither of us do online banking either

Edited 3 April, 201412 yr by Mr Ree

If the account was compromised and pre Virgin account, then how would they have emailed you?

Almost all providers now have alternative email addresses which if set up will inform you of a password change attempt and allow you to stop it. Even adding or trying to remove these email addresses generates an email to every backup address you've set.

It's worth setting on all your accounts.

If the account was compromised and pre Virgin account, then how would they have emailed you?

Almost all providers now have alternative email addresses which if set up will inform you of a password change attempt and allow you to stop it. Even adding or trying to remove these email addresses generates an email to every backup address you've set.

It's worth setting on all your accounts.

 

Fancy asking me!

 

Dunno.

P'raps it was after we went over to Virgin then. I thought it was before, but hey ho. :think:

 

Someone suggested it may have been done by a 'bot'.

Edited 3 April, 201412 yr by Mr Ree

To me it'd suggest some sort of malware on your machine looking at email addresses used and harvesting them

Not really, Gman. Hotmail in thec states had this problem a while back. Hotmail UK had this problem recently and even Yahoo. All caused by password cracking. I had emails from my wife's account, where she's sent none. Password change cured it. I've found the answer is to have more than one account with only the other account details in the address book and beef up the passwords. I've also got a system set up where any change of password is sent to another account for verification. 

Edited 9 April, 201412 yr by VWD