How to Fix Your Hacked Hotmail Email Account: Who Broke In?

Having your email hacked can feel like one of the scariest days of your life. As I wrote about in my article about my personal Yahoo account hack; I entered my email to find page after page of "rebounded emails" then I began receiving emails from my friends asking why I sent them junk. UGH. I don't even use an "address book" and there were no “SENT” messages, so I had no clue who I sent emails to or what they said! The more friends I began text messaging to ask if they got “spam” from me, the more that said “yeah” – thankfully some of my friends had the spam go to their SPAM folder and didn’t even know these messages were sent. But the feeling of someone being in my email account, obtaining God knows what information and sending out hundreds to thousands of emails is enough to make anyone feel instantly ill. Then, to make the pit in my stomach even worse, I began researching Yahoo email hacks and found horror stories about hackers sending out emails that link to sexual sites or sexual enhancement pills. The last thing I need is my father or one of my supplier getting an email from me telling them they should buy a penis pump. *CRINGE*

Ok, so you can’t undo the hack, but you CAN act immediately. First you need to determine IF you really have been hacked.

Obviously, if your INBOX is loaded with rebounded messages, your email has been compromised. Also, in hotmail, you will likely have a Notification that will say your account may have been compromised. This is how my INBOX looked on the day of my hack:

then I starting getting emails from my concerned friends, family, coworkers, suppliers.... you name it. Here's one of them -

BUT WAIT! Let me state that just because you get emails from friends, family or coworkers stating that you sent them spam DOES NOT mean you have been hacked. It could be someone sending spam and using your email as a coverup.

Next you will want to change your password. Unfortunately, a hotmail password change is not as simplistic as other emails, such as Yahoo. It seems to me that the security in regard to a password change is greatly increased due to the connections between Skydrive, Outlook and Microsoft. Basically, it’s great that the email hijacker CAN’T easily block you out, but can be difficult to block THEM out if they remain inside the account.

To begin your password reset, you will want to go to http://account.live.com/password/reset

You will be walked through the step-by-step process.

Immediately cease using the same security question answers. And stop answering them honestly. What I do is pick answers to security questions that would be unguessable. For example, if the question is “what was your first pets name”; anyone who knows you well would likely also know this information, as well is “who was the best man in your wedding” or “what street did you grow up on”. What I do is pick an illogical answer such as QUESTION: “Who is your favorite author?” ANSWER: “BigBlueCarpet” or “Applesauce”.

One major thing you need to STOP right away is sending or receiving “mass emails” from friends or family; joke emails, for example are usually sent from one person to a giant list of their contacts. If a single persons email is compromised, the hacker now forever has access to EVERYONES email on the list. A very practical alternative is to utilize Facebook Groups of Facebook messenger to post your jokes or other messages that aren’t genuinely “important”.

Do not list your email online IF POSSIBLE. For example, if you have a website, see if you can use an Email Form.

For your social networking sites and such, make a secondary account; afterall, do you really need notifications coming through to your email when you log into the site daily anyway?

Use a “junk email account” for all of your subscriptions to stuff. For example, if I sign up for a mailing list or enter my email to win a raffle at a local store, I always give out my “junk email”. I still check my junk email account a few times per month (and whenever I plan to go out to eat or shop so I can print coupons). It actually makes it really handy to have all of the coupons, advertisements, promotions, etc all go to one account and not have them meshed with important info.

Never use your "master password" (the password you probably use for more than one thing) for your main email account. Equally, do not use your main email account password for signing up for "junk" or social networking sites.

You can obtain a list of IP addresses of everyone who logged into your hotmail. Unlike Yahoo, which gives you a list you can view at any time, you will need to take the following steps:

To start the request process, please visit http://account.live.com/password/reset

Select I forgot my password from the first screen, and select "Reset Your Password"

Enter the LiveID that you wish to obtain the login history for and solve the HIP check then click "next"

From the next screen select "Customer Support" then click the "Customer Support Link"

This will take you into the Automated Validation Process.

Follow the prompts and fill out the information as fully as possible.

Once you submit, you will either receive a response almost immediately if you auto-passed

If not, you will receive an automated e-mail with an issue number, and within the next 24 hours you will receive either notification of a pass or a fail, again with the same issue number.

NEXT, you can look up the IP address for free here. Most likely you will find that your account has been hacked by someone overseas. However, it is still possible that you may find out your hack is local; thus giving you the option to file a police report or a court case against this person.