Hotmail hacked-craigslist warning

[mrmustang]

So, it finally happened to me, my email address book got snagged at 5:17am this morning and 300+ spam messages went out to my contacts.


How did it happen, it appears that someone sent me a response to a Craigs List post that had a malicious code attached to it. Me opening it up was enough to automatically send the code to work. Took about 5 seconds for me to see a jump in CPU useage, but it was too late. My firewall snapped shut, but the damage has been done for the day, my hotmail account is locked down for the next 24 hours.

I then wiped the system cache, browser cache, and ran three separate programs to check and disinfect my computer (non found).

Next I went in to hotmail and redid all of my passwords, phone contact, challenge questions, etc, user ID has been modified, (subtle so I can see if it happens again or if my email is now in spammer hell as a sent from), password is now 15+ characters long.


So if you got an email from me this morning around 5:17am, do not open it, delete it hard and be done with it.


Let this serve as a warning to others.


Bill S.