Wednesday 20 February 2013

WARNING - HACKED EMAIL - Updated

Within the last 30 mins I have had lots of emails sent out which have not come from me.  It seems that my email has been hacked and as a precaution Hotmail has locked me out and I now have to prove who I am.  I have had this account for over 13 years and some of the questions they are asking I may not be able to remember.

More importantly...please do not answer or open any emails which appear to have come from me this evening Wednesday 20th February.

I am sorry about this and rather annoyed as I was asked to change my password before Christmas by Hotmail to support the security, now I am wondering who actually asked me!

Keep a close eye on your own emails too.  Some of the comments are very odd and clearly do not come from me.  They are accompanied with an attachment.....DO NOT OPEN IT!!!

Many thanks to Toffee Apple for texting me to find out if something was up.  My blackberry is ok to use and I have verified my Blog too via Blogger.
Excellent....guess what we are doing this evening!!!
Take care all
xx
UPDATE:
It is all sorted out and I have tried to email everyone in my contacts.  Many have been bounced back so I am assuming that they are no longer used and have been changed by the original users.  If you are ever asked to set up a recovery procedure for your  blog or email etc do it!  I set it up last time something like this happened and even though it did not stop it happening again (differently mind you!) did does make it easier to sort it out.
Phew!  Hope it has not caused anyone else any problems.
xx
Another update:
I have just had an email stating that someone did not like me sending a warning email as it may have exposed their address to others in my contacts and that I should have used a blind cc (whatever that is)  but was quite happy to reply to that same email and happily put their website on said email to be exposed  to everyone!  Sorry folks if I upset anyone but I was more worried about your computers being damaged or a virus getting in as I did not know what the cause was.  I have never emailed this person and they were not in my email contacts but I have left a comment on their blog ages ago, so a link must have been made when they replied to it.  So unless you are family I have deleted everyone from my contacts and I shall try to keep the contacts box empty from now on.  If I need your email then I shall use the old fashion way of writing it down.
xxx

Again.  Sorry.


6 comments:

Ali said...

This happened to me last year and sent mail to everyone I'd ever been in contact with. Thanks for passing on the message.
Ali x

Carol said...

Hi Andrea, yes, I got one from you and emailed to let you know you might have been hacked (obviously if you are locked out of hotmail you won't have read it!).
I didn't open any attachment but did click on the link as it did seem to be from you. I'll email my main contacts just in case this has affected my address book too.
So annoying for you and all affected, Carol xx

Indigo Blue said...

Thank you Carol.
If you could spread the word round I would be grateful. This happened two years ago but I was already in my email and I was able to send out a warning to my whole address book. Very annoying and one of the bad aspects of the internet.
xx

Indigo Blue said...

Thank you Ali.
I found this in my blog spam!!
There is never any warning is there? Thankfully we are both getting very good at knowing where to start to sort it out.
We are still working on it by using my hubby's laptop.
xx

Jo said...

thanks for the warning, just checked my e-mails and had two from you!
just a thought but could you set up a googlemail e-mail?
Josie x

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry that you have had all that work to do to stop the problem but glad that it wasn't too disastrous.

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