My email got hacked
@Masihi (4413)
Canada
February 20, 2012 8:06pm CST
First time it ever happened as well! Yuck! I can't get over it, I'm so pissed off!!! I guess people have too much time on their hands and can think of nothing but causing mischief. Well, this bugger went into my email and spammed all my contacts (thankfully it's my personal email and every one of them are death against online marketing) and promoted some online marketing site. I was right at my computer when I saw in a tab all kinds of emails in my hotmail account, and I saw all these delivery failure messages, and caught it right then, just as they were sending them. I went into my account, changed my password, then sent an apology email to all my contacts explaining what happened.
Man this is so embarrassing! :-(
2 people like this
9 responses
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
21 Feb 12
Hon, it happens to us all at one point or another or even more..I know I have had it happen to me as well. I noticed when it sent it to my other email I have.. I know I hadn't sent it to myself and I went and checked and seen it had sent it to all my contacts like you said. I told them all what happened and told them to disregard that email and that I was changing my email. I have had to change it a few times..which every 6 months should be done anyhow..and it has happened to my little sisters account as well but these were yahoo accounts..I wasn't embarrassed I was more annoyed and pissed off..lol
2 people like this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
Mine was Hotmail, and I had my children's school and intinerant teachers on it, plus some important contacts so it was really embarrassing, but hopefully they understood after I sent an email apologising and explaining what happened. This is the first time, and hopefully the last, I'm careful with everything, so now I have to see if I can tweak some security settings or something, and perhaps change my password more often.
1 person likes this
@rollylolly (2843)
• India
21 Feb 12
Yes when such mails are sent to formal contacts and acquaintances it is really embarassing . Good that your contacts understood when you explained to them . My cousin had to suffer a very dire consequence because of this .
2 people like this
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
21 Feb 12
This is a common problem with Hotmail and has been for many years. Hotmail is also really bad for getting spammed. I had an account with them many years ago, but changed over to Gmail in 2006 which is much better and way more secure. I would get rid of the Hotmail ASAP as it is a cheap and nasty email address.
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
22 Feb 12
I get logged out of Gmail every now and then too, but I never thought that it might be a Gmail thing, thought it was probably me deleting cookies! I never have to send any verification codes on my phone though. Not that I use my phone for email that much.
You have a new profile pic! 
1 person likes this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
There's a lot of shady people on Hotmail so I found out, it seems to be one of the most common emails used to request cybering - that and yahoo. You're right Gmail seems to be more secure, and I've noticed it has toughened up its security system, like every 2 weeks it kicks me out and have me to sign in, then send a verification code to my cell phone, and only then it'll let me in once I type in the verification code. I used to think it was over the top but now as I'm writing this I'm realising it makes sense.
@yanzalong (18984)
• Indonesia
21 Feb 12
That's what I am afraid of.
Signing up to many sites has risk of being spammed like what you explained.
But he/she didn't take control of the email password, right? I mean you can still log in to your email.
2 people like this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
Well, see, this is my personal email, and so I did very little in the line of marketing with my personal email, 99% goes to my gmail account with I don't really care if it goes or not. But the main thing the dude never changed my password, which is good, but I was right there the second he started spamming my contacts so I was on it like a duck on a june bug. Changed my email and sent a mass email to my contact apoogising for everything. So embarraassing!
1 person likes this
@LovingMyBabies (85127)
• Valdosta, Georgia
21 Feb 12
With my one email address it keeps happening to me. I have changed my password a few times and somehow they keep getting in! Its so annoying and yeah embarrassing too. I guess these people have WAY too much time on their hands. They need to find another hobby, lol.
2 people like this
@enelym001 (8322)
• Philippines
21 Feb 12
That is something that would be pissed me off too. I am glad so far no one has hacked my account and I am not hoping too that anyone would ever hacked my account. But when I feel something strange I immediately change my password. Lucky you that you were able to notice it earlier and had changed your password quickly. You did a good job doing that at least worst thing have been prevented.
2 people like this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
Yes I was very fortunate, and now that I have been through I'm more cautious and wary, and hopefully I can avoid this kind of thing. I honestly don't know what triggered this, maybe it's because my password was too easy, and so it has a tough one now. Let's see how this goes, I should kinda make a back-up of my contacts anyway and then I can have them on hand in case I don't ever get my hotmail account back should there be a next time.
@almond24 (1248)
• Hungary
21 Feb 12
When I saw those delivery failure messages and spams last year I didn't even suspect that my email was hacked... Just deleted my account out of embarrassment and didn't know what was going on - I better keep my eyes open!
A few days ago I saw that my email was accessed from Norway, so it was obvious that it was being hacked... I immediately changed my password, and was so mad why someone has nothing better to do than getting into others' mails. :(
2 people like this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
Wow how did you figure out the hacker was from Norway? I wonder where my hacker is from, then. This was a major shocker for me because I've never ever had this happen to me before, and plus I was always careful. Now I think I'm gonna have to go through all my email accounts and important banking accounts and change those passwords as well. This is NOT going to be a pleasant task!
1 person likes this
@almond24 (1248)
• Hungary
21 Feb 12
I didn't have to think hard because when I was deleting some messages, a notification came up. It's a gmail account and I wonder if this is a new 'service'. I changed some of my other passwords too and am wondering if I should change it everywhere, even if I have different passwords for different accounts... I think it would be better, just to be on the safe side.
2 people like this
@saundyl (9783)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
I had that happen once....I was lucky though because with that certain email i had signed up for it for "spam" that i didnt want to go to my regualr inbox...and i didnt have any contacts saved on the account. It sent a ton of mystery contacts emails....and i changed my password and then deleted the account.
1 person likes this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
You were indeed fortunate, let's hope and pray this doesn't happen again - to either of us. Pretty freaky.
@beamer88 (4259)
• Philippines
21 Feb 12
You were very fortunate that one who hacked your email account only did those things. It could have been worse. I really agree with you that people have too much time on their hands, and these people are intelligent. It's so frustrating that they use this intelligence of theirs just to do mischief. I almost had a similar experience when someone with an IP address from Russia tried to access my office email account. It was blocked though but it still gave me quite a scare since there were really very important mails in my inbox at that time.
2 people like this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
21 Feb 12
Ya, it could be a lot worse, that's for sure, and I have important personal stuff on there. That's good that that Russian dude got blocked, sounds like your work had a very good firewall or spyware protection. I agree with out about the intelligence part, why not use their intelligence to even track down hackers? Ah well. I'd gladly take their intelligence though :-p
1 person likes this
@MATT69AC (333)
• United States
22 Feb 12
Well you are lucky I had my hotmail account hacked and they changed my password and security questions. Then they emailed my yahoo email and they said they would give it back if i pay them $20 my hotmail account was so important to me the first email I had ever had and all my contacts. I contacted hotmail customer service and they wouldnt give it back because they didnt think it was me. I was so pissed.
So out of that I learned a huge lesson and that is to not have the same password for everything, now all my passwords are different.
1 person likes this
@Masihi (4413)
• Canada
22 Feb 12
Yes, I am using a different password now for different things as well, before everything was the same password for everything but over the past few months I been gradually changing my password to different, more complicated ones. Sorry you lost your hotmail account, I know the hotmail staff aren't very helpful but then again, neither is the gmail staff.
