Received mail from friend's hacked hotmail account - advice?

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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 4:27 am

I've had a friend who had their hotmail account hacked into, and while it took a few days, they DID give her account back to her (mind you, it was almost immediately hacked into again, so she gave up on it).

Never been a hotmail fan myself (not that yahoo's any better, I had a friend's account hacked into there as well), but I do know there is dedicated Hotmail hacking software floating around.

I can't what I was searching for, but i came across a site that had all sorts of crap for free download, and it was mostly software a: 20 downloads, software b: 325 downloads. Hotmail hacker: 31, 625 downloads Embarassed

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 689

delamancha wrote:

An update:

My friend got a call from a Japanese newspaper (she lives in Japan), and they are going to do a story on her situation and on these kinds of scams in general. One of her contacts on her hotmail address received the scam message and got interested in the story from it. She thinks it will be a good way to warn the Japanese public about these kinds of scams.

Thanks again for all your assistance.

and that is one brilliant outcome! Very Happy

Not quite a Newb Joined: 09 Jun 2011 Posts: 37

Believe it or not, the hotmail account has STILL not been shut down or returned to my friend. It is still being used by the hacker to solicit wire fraud, and hotmail has not responded at all -- and it's been two weeks. She has gone to the police here in Japan with printouts of all the e-mails with the full headers, and the police are going to try to contact Microsoft to get them to take action. This continues to be a problem for her since clients who do not contact her often might contact her for business reasons, not realizing that her account has been hacked. Although she has posted on her website that her account has been hacked and that she should be contacted by phone or through an alternative e-mail address, most do not check her website before contacting her.

The hacker has changed all her personal information on the account, such as security questions, secondary email addresses, etc., so she cannot use any of those methods to recover her account. She's filled out the form to reclaim her account multiple times with no response. We have sent messages with full headers to hotmail's abuse team to prove that the account has been hacked -- again to no avail.

Any advice on how to get Hotmail to respond would be most welcome.

Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 6:36 am

There should be hotmail user forums out there on the interwebz. She could post nasty comments there. I bet hotmail employees read those forums.

Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:56 am

delamancha wrote:

Any advice on how to get Hotmail to respond would be most welcome.

Stop bombarding them with emails might be one thing worth trying. They must receive thousands of those requests everyday and have to do some kind of internal investigation before they act, or you'd see everyone trying to gain access or get accounts shut down for all sorts of reasons.

The best advice I can give you is to tell her to contact as many people that she knows have her email, and ask them to ignore any mail coming from that box (or any other they might have set up in her name) until she phones to say it's been sorted. Leave the box alone.
That goes for baiters too. Just let the box die and they'll most likely move on and she'll have half a chance of getting the box back once the dust has settled.

The hackers sound determined and know what they are doing. They will have gone through the contents of the account and will have enough information to set up other email and social network accounts with her name and try again. Bad news is, she's pwnd for the foreseeable.

Next time she opens an account, tell her not to use her real name and clean the box of any sensitive info at regular intervals.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 09 Jun 2011 Posts: 37

An update, for those who are interested:

Hotmail finally responded to me and a few others who filed reports with [email protected]. They claimed that they account had been shut down. However, when I sent a test message to the e-mail, the hacker replied back, again soliciting me for a wire transfer. I'm not sure why Hotmail claimed they had shut down the account when it was still is being used by the hacker.

My friend has contacted Hotmail through their online form several times, but each time Hotmail claims that they cannot verify her identity.

My friend has indeed contacted everyone she knows and has told them about the hacker. The problem is with people who she does not contact often or who are contacting her after having not contacted her for a long time. She is a performer, and she has been doing this here for about 20 years. She has used her hotmail account for many years, and many people who want to hire her may only contact her very occasionally, or perhaps have not contacted her at all and have only gotten her email from her business card. She fears that many have sent inquiries to her account and the hacker has just ignored them. Of course, she has put on her website that her account has been hacked and that people should call her. The newspaper is also doing a story on her plight, so when that is printed, it will hopefully notify others as well as to what is going on with her. She usually has many jobs lined up by this time for summer and early autumn, but she has much less than usual, and she fears it may be because many people have attempted to contact her via her hotmail account and have given up after not receiving a reply.

This whole experience has really soured me on Hotmail. I'd advise anyone using Hotmail to be very careful. If you have Hotmail and you are hacked, there is very little you can do about it, it seems.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 689

I know the victim is the one that has suffered but come on .. using a freebie amateur kiddie service like hotmail for day to day important business contacts with insecure passwords (and non-existent service) is blatantly asking for trouble. Internet and email hacking is rife as is scamming, people should know they need to be cautious. Even more so when it's their livelihood.

Sorry but sometimes people simply do not help themselves.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 09 Jun 2011 Posts: 37

N N N wrote:

I know the victim is the one that has suffered but come on .. using a freebie amateur kiddie service like hotmail for day to day important business contacts with insecure passwords (and non-existent service) is blatantly asking for trouble. Internet and email hacking is rife as is scamming, people should know they need to be cautious. Even more so when it's their livelihood.

Sorry but sometimes people simply do not help themselves.

Thanks for helpful and sympathetic message.

I think most people are not aware how easy Hotmail can be hacked. She certainly wasn't. That is why the newspaper is doing a piece on it, so others can be made aware.

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