RSSMy Hotmail has been hacked…
Feb 12
Business, Internet, Life Interweb, Life, Systems 108 Comments
I am distraught, I am the victim of hacker!
My hotmail/msn messenger login has been stolen, I have for some years now had the hotmail address - king@hotmail.co.uk, which i won in a eBay charity auction (for NSPCC).
The address regularly attracts attention of hackers, I get frequent emails in my Hotmail ‘Reset your windows live password now’, not to mention at 10 people a day randomly adding me either to see who has the address or by mistake!
So how did they do it? Being in our business all our workstations are locked down, firewalled, security patched, anti-virussed, anti-spywared up to the hind teeth, so a workstation compromise seems unlikely.
The perpetrator (by all accounts a 19yr old Egyptian male), who has been boasting to my contacts about how ‘he works for msn, and has hacked my account’, by all accounts achieved this by the most artistic form of hacking ‘social engineering’.
‘Social engineering’, basically means he has convinced someone at MS Live to reset my account password, thus gaining him access to my account. He has then gone on to change the other pieces of information (secret phrase, alternate email address), thus stopping me resetting it back.
So I am in the annoying stage at the moment where someone else is logged onto my messenger, and I can’t do anything about it until MS sort it out. BOO!
Update (21/07/2008)
After recieving many posts and emails with people asking and pleading with me to help them get their hotmail back I have prepared a handy document that tells you everything you need to know. I am making a small charge for this of $10, you can buy it here.
Mar 25, 2007 @ 14:02:32
I totally understand some Egyptian guy hacked my email: nora_ad2@hotmail.com and hes changed my secret question and answer and password and location!!!
Apr 01, 2007 @ 11:55:21
i no how you feel, the guy didnt hack my msn it was someone totally different. But it is soo annoying that people cant leave your personal thigns alone! because right now i feel that someone is snooping through all of my personal details!! i have wrote to msn but obviously theres no reply xx ive tried everything:(
Apr 13, 2007 @ 22:04:55
someone has hacked into my msn and changed the password i feel annoyed and violated that some one has access to ma emails and personal things i have sent a report to msn but no reply ive tried everything please help me
Apr 13, 2007 @ 23:37:56
My heart is out to you. Have you followed my posts on the subject? You will get it back if you follow the procedure.
Do you know what you did to lose it?
Best of Luck… Ben
Apr 14, 2007 @ 15:54:09
Mine been hacked too is there any way of talkign to the people at msn
to get it back
Apr 14, 2007 @ 18:44:01
Yup, read my followup posts to this, MS have a process that you have to follow, but its very doable.
May 29, 2007 @ 06:01:36
hey well new account that i made and have been using for many years..the password has been change…and it has all my information on it…i dont know what i should do..may u be able to help me..?? thank you
May 31, 2007 @ 01:10:31
Again I refer to my followup posts, you CAN get your address back!
Jun 13, 2007 @ 22:53:38
someone has hacked into my msn and changed the password i feel annoyed and violated that some one has access to ma emails and personal things i have sent a report to msn but no reply ive tried everything please help me
Jun 14, 2007 @ 09:52:26
Hi Ahmed,
Your story is a common one, please persevere with Microsoft. They will come good in the end… See my other post on the subject.
Jun 27, 2007 @ 01:21:31
i no how u all feel! my hotmail got hacked before! after some girl added me on msn last night and gave me abuse an wouldnt tell me who she was! an has been changing my name to all sorts! all of my contacts are lost now forever most of them
Jul 05, 2007 @ 10:06:19
Where are these follow up posts?? Im in the same boat as everyone else although i know who hacked me and he wants cash for the Password!
Please Help me!Before i beat the crap out of this guy!Let me show him up by getting back into my account!
Follow up posts are where???
Thanks
Aug 06, 2007 @ 22:09:00
My Msn Has Been Hacked And I Dont Know What 2 Do I Have Had 2 Start A New Msn
But The Bad Thing Is My Friend Asked Me If I Would Go On Webcam(But It Was A Hacker On His Accout) But Luckily I Declined It
Byee x
Aug 12, 2007 @ 16:49:55
My email account has just been hacked too. Although it was not on MSN, somebody has been sending out emails from my business email account using lots of different names @(my company business).com I received 1749 returned emails to my account because they either could not be delivered or they were returned to the sender for being SPAM. I was furious, on a sunday morning too. The only think I could think of to do was to immediately change my password on my control panel. As soon as I did this, it stopped. But I have no idea how many emails have been sent from my company email to innocent people in the world. The emails that came back to me were from all over the place, universities, banks, government councils etc. Its quite frightening. I have informed my service provider just in case. I have not got a clue how anyone has intercepted my email account as it is only me in the company that knows the password, so how can this happen? Many thanks. Julie
Sep 09, 2007 @ 11:13:25
someone has changed bothe my hotmail and messenegr password and i have loads of good friends and family on it and can’t get their email address and im afraid of him saying something to them
Sep 13, 2007 @ 11:56:29
someone has hacked my hotmail/msn how do i get it back please
Sep 15, 2007 @ 09:58:24
This thread constantly generates traffic, so for anyone who finds themselves in the situation where there hotmail has been hacked and all the security phrases changed, firstly complete the form here:
http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlid&page=wlsuppor t_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts
Basically what will happen is that MSN will ask you a number of questions about your account, who is on your friends lists, what your secret question/answer used to be, etc., etc. Then they will release the account back to you.
By the way, the reason people are losing there accounts is due to a cookie vulnerability in hotmail. Basically when you open an email in hotmail it is under the scope of hotmail.com so if someone sends you a craftily formatted email your browser will happily send them your hotmail cookie, they can then get onto your hotmail without password and change your details accordingly…
The moral is… DO NOT OPEN HOTMAIL EMAILS FROM PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW.
Oct 03, 2007 @ 22:25:58
Where is your post regarding the procedure for accessing your stolen hotmail account???
Amrit.
Oct 18, 2007 @ 20:04:25
my msn has been hacked into. Does anyone knoe how i get my name back or can anyone help me please.
Nov 02, 2007 @ 01:00:11
Hi,
I have the same problem at the moment, happened to both my hotmail account & ebay account.
Just a quick question, how long did it take for you to get your account back from msn? I’ve emailed them my problem using that contact form and I’ve received the questions. Is that it?
Nov 02, 2007 @ 09:39:41
Hi There,
It took a good few weeks to get it sorted, you have to go backwards and forwards answering questions which is a pain.
Not sure how ebay works though!
Regards… Ben
Nov 02, 2007 @ 12:51:52
I just had the same situation with ebay and hotmail. I am still waiting on hotmail but for ebay I just contacted them through the help section where you can speak to a live support person (chat window) and they sorted this out for me in a few minutes – someone was posting loads of items for sale on my account!!! Ebay cancelled them and refunded me the fees.
Now I’m just waiting for hotmail to sort the email account out – I wish they had a live chat where you could actually speak to someone!
Nov 02, 2007 @ 20:35:56
Hey.. actually got my hotmail & ebay accounts back today, pretty quick.
Seems as though it was some guy in China trying to sell laptops on my account, ebay just cancelled them straight away so thats good to hear. Took me a while to change my language settings back to English though!
Nov 06, 2007 @ 09:13:18
Hi,
Just today i got home from school and tried to go on msn but said that i had typed in the wrong password. so i tried again, and again and yet the same problem. so i tried a few different passwords, thinking that i possibly typed the wrong one in and nothing. the strangest thing being i was using my email 2 hours earlier at school. On top of that i tried to resolve the problem by accesing the secret question, but it had been changed to “whats your favorite food” which was not my secret question that i previously had. what do i do ?
You help is appreciated,
mike.
Nov 06, 2007 @ 15:33:09
Terry how did you get your hotmail account back so quickly because i had the same problem as you.
Both my hotmail and ebay account have been hacked and when i got into the forgot password part of hotmail the questions in chinese.
I tried the method on this website but its been 4 working days now.
I cant really afford to lose my email to much is linked to it.
Nov 08, 2007 @ 03:10:00
Hey
To get my hotmail account back I used this link:
http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlid&page=wlsuppor t_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts
and to get my ebay account back I used this link:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-reporting.html
You should hear back soon if you’ve completed those contact forms properly. Msn contacted me a day after I contacted them asking me questions to verify me, and then another day to send the link which I used to reset the password. Good luck!
Nov 12, 2007 @ 22:43:14
Thank you very much guys. I was able to regain access after following the links you provided. Why doesn’t hotmail/msn make this sort of information more easy to find. I am just glad to have it all back and working again. Thank you very much.
Nov 13, 2007 @ 15:38:26
someone has hacked my msn e-mail how do i get it back please?
Nov 13, 2007 @ 23:59:31
Hi
Ermm TERRY, i went on the link and got a reply from them a day after. They asked me 16 questions, but i didn’t know some of the answers, so i said i didn’t know. Did u answer all the questions properly? Sorry just getting a bit worried because i couldn’t remember what my secret password was or some of the folders i had in my account.
Marina read some of the advice above its really helpful
Thanks x
Nov 14, 2007 @ 03:41:16
My hotmail got breached in the past 24hours, i logged into everything i could and changed the password… until i got to Ebay… yes i had the same problem with someone selling stuff on my reputable profile. The live help guys were really helpful though and stopped everything and reset my password.
I have filled out the form to reset my hotmail password (as my questions have also gone to Chinese!!!)
Does anyone know if you get your emails in your account back???
Also what should i do to prevent this happening again??? Is just a strong password enough to stop yourself being hacked???
Nov 20, 2007 @ 17:45:38
The link > http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlid&page=wlsupport_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts
is temporarily down for me!!!
My hotmail and ebay account got hacked, managed to stop all the dodgy dealings the person did to my ebay, and shut it down, but need to desperately stop my hotmail , urgent help required!!
Nov 20, 2007 @ 18:36:22
Terry, how did you get it back to english, mine has been hacked,I got it back but its al in chinese. Cheers
Nov 21, 2007 @ 20:55:29
Yes please help me too I’ve just got my hotmail and ebay back but my hotmail is still in chinese. Thankyou
Nov 24, 2007 @ 22:04:51
In hotmail make sure you choose the option of using the ‘full version’.
Then;
-Click on options (top right hand corner)
-Then scroll down to the bold option and click on that
-That’ll take you to a new page. Click on the 8th link (it should be that) down and choose the language option you want to use.
That should work.
Nov 28, 2007 @ 01:46:13
Hey guys. I think it’s just happened to me as well with my hotmail question changed to chinese. After seeing the replies related to ebay I checked that too. While I could still access ebay I noticed a message from “ebay” was in my inbox, however the main body of this email after I opened it simply contained loads of ???’s. I presume from a hacker?? Definitely looks like my account’s being targeted. I’ve changed my password and secret q&a on ebay. Anything else I need to do for ebay? In the meantime I’m trying to get my hotmail password back.
Thanks all.
Dec 01, 2007 @ 00:04:01
That’s my account back now. Thanks for the tips all. Took me 4 days to get the account back.
Dec 01, 2007 @ 16:34:02
Thanks for all the advice on here everyone – my Hotmail had been hacked by spammers and was all in Chinese. Thanks to the help on here I’ve been able to get it sorted. Thankfully my ebay account was fine, though the spammers had requested the username (luckily my password was different). I’ve since been changing passwords all over the place, it’s a bit of a scary lesson.
Dec 02, 2007 @ 21:13:25
Hi, I tried using the above directions to no avail, about changing my hotmail from Chinese to English.
Does anyone have any other way? Everthing bar my folder names and emails are in Chinese and not even characters – just boxes.
Would greatly appreaciate help.
Damn hackers, they are so invasive.
Dec 04, 2007 @ 23:41:07
Hi all thanks for all the useful information to date, but am still awaiting a reply from windows live support. Appears someone has changed my password too and secret question been changed to chinese. My concern is I can’t remember my password to my ebay or paypal acct and stupidly had all this information recorded in my hotmail acct. Am really concerned they will use this information and destroy me financially. Help I’m soo worried. yes I know I’m stupid, but my trusting nature has burnt me.
Dec 05, 2007 @ 00:38:52
Hi Connie,
Sorry to hear about your hotmail being accounts, I wish Microsoft would get on and fix the damn cookie hack that is causing soo many of us problems.
Firstly I would suggest you cancel all your credit/debit cards that might be listed in your paypal account.
If you have any money in your paypal account there isn’t a lot you can do.
However you can try to call paypal on +1 (402) 935-7733 or +1 877 672-9725 (courtesy of http://www.aboutpaypal.org).
Best of luck.
Dec 12, 2007 @ 03:43:09
Hi
My hotmail had been down since 08 December 2007. There are a lot of green arrows whenever I click on the inbox and all the other features. The screen flickers too.
Could you kindly advise me?
Thank you so much =)
Dec 12, 2007 @ 16:25:56
thanks for the help with getting this issue sorted.
as a back up before this happens, i’d advise people to maybe take a screen shot of their actual hotmail account when it’s loaded up, or save in a word document, the name of files that are in there, as well as emails you’ve saved, as this is a question that hotmail ask you, when you’re trying to resolve the issue.
Dec 14, 2007 @ 21:33:13
They just struck me. All my passwords are fine bar msn messenger and ebay.
I can’t cancel my ebay as I have a payment pending!!
My questions have also been changed to chinese.
Will I get everything back??
I have done the 2 links you gave on here.
Dec 18, 2007 @ 03:12:48
the ahmed guy is one of the hackers
dont follow his advice
Jan 02, 2008 @ 17:52:40
some1 has hacked into my hotmail to, only they have changed the password for my alternative email address aswell. also my online shopping accounts, some of them have been canceled and others have had there passwords changed, i really dont no wot to do, iv tried the msn support thing, but dont seem 2 have gotten a reply. any other ideas?? thanx, id b really greatful 4 any help!!
Jan 03, 2008 @ 16:02:20
I cannot thank this blog enough. Although i have not posted before when i first found the problem (yesterday) i had my hotmail account hijacked on new years eve. Also my ebay account. Two items (ipod and NIkon camera) were listed at buy it now in the evening (for a quick buck i guess). Furthermore i was worried my Paypal with all its sensitive information had also been had as new cards appeared on the account. (to take payment maybe)
I only realised when i could not log in to hotmail on the 2nd Jan and would not have suspected anything had i not found this blog.
Ebay were amazing (following the advice to contact them at the chat forum thing) they even advised regarding hotmail and paypal. Hotmail also responded well and I have just today been verified and got back in to my account. It seems the confirmation email of my ebay password changing (chagned by the hacker) arrived 2 minutes AFTER the first item was listed. Luckily ebay suspected and canceled the items on the 1st before i even knew the two accounts had been taken over. Not bfore 11 questions from sellers had been posted though!
My only question now is what can i do to prevent this happening again- i have been given a lot of advice over the phone and on email regarding not opening emails that suppose to be from ebay/hotmail/paypal etc but i am 99.9% sure i have not done this. In fact i reported a suspected spoof paypal months ago. However i did leave my computer on over new years eve – new years day and its a wireless connection to the router. (i was not on any website at that time it was just on the desktop) Although i have a network key can hackers still gain access somehow to my computer and would the computer then give up passwords to a third party despite a firewall?? Very worrying for anyone but am i safer plugging directly to the router? Is it safe to stay connected at all?
Jan 03, 2008 @ 16:04:16
P.S the police are really appreciative of the evidence you can provide when this happens and i have been informed when i vistited that two people in the last week were caught and jailed for internet fraud in the area.
Jan 05, 2008 @ 23:14:07
plz people my e-mail was hacked and i have all my patients apointments and all my contacts on it im a surgent and i really need all of them if any body can help me plz
my e-mail is galag_ksa@hotmail.com
if any body will send the password to me my oher e-mail is dr.samman13@hotmail.com
Jan 08, 2008 @ 02:06:40
hi everyone.i’ve stumbled upon this blog and i was suffering the same situation.my secret question was in chinese.apparently in 4 days time,i got it back and the hacker was stupid enough to leave his alternate email address.
his location is in China.
his postal code was 100121.
his email address is huasheng578@yahoo.com.
BEWARE OF THIS GUY.
If he so happens to be within my vicinity.i’m going to slit his throat.
thanks anyway ben!
Jan 08, 2008 @ 02:21:46
LOL Thanks Swifty… not sure I can condone throat slitting, but I appreciate the sentiment!