[coastie65]

Just thought I'd put this up. MSN / Windows live / Hotmail has serious security issues and the servers have been hacked. My account has been taken over and I can no longer access it. emails have been sent purportedly from me saying that I am stranded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I suspest that is where you will find the hacker. I have sent off a letter to them, but don't know if it wll get read or not. Those idiots are so Hell bent focused on the release of Windows 8 and that stinking tablet, that they are letting everything else go. I am on my Mom's account which is the primary account and fine. It is mine which is the secondary account. Can't believe those guys are sitting on their thumbs while this stuff is going on and it is obvious their security needs work. To my knowledge the forum servers have never been hacked and no members compromised. They even changed my password so I can't get to my email either in Windows Live mail or Hotmail.

[LiveBrianD]

Do you have a backup email set? So far, I haven't had any issues with my 2 accounts. Maybe some malware got your password or an attacker guessed it?

[coastie65]

LiveBrianD, on 20 June 2012 - 07:14 PM, said:

Do you have a backup email set? So far, I haven't had any issues with my 2 accounts. Maybe some malware got your password or an attacker guessed it?

Hey Brian, I had a security signature that I added and that was coming up on the emails. I had printed out a hard copy of my address book, but think it got tossed on one of my rare desk clean up days. I can't even sign into my account through IE. When I try to change the password I can't as the information that was on file has been changed. I have shut down the account and am on my Mom's account ( Primary ). I can access my email through my phone though. I don't know, Microsoft is all about changing OS's every two years and now that tablet. They need to pay attention to what they already have. I routinely scan this thing on a regular basis, and it has come of clean short of tracking cookies. The problem is with the MSN servers and the fact they got hacked and Microsoft sat on it's thumbs. I think I had seen something a while back about hotmail/ windows live mail being hacked. I can rule out malware, at least on this computer. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the MSN Premium software several times as well as the Windows Live Essentials stuff. Seeing as how my account was a secondary account, I have shut it down, so that should prevent any further activity. They may have an email address, but not one that is vaild.

[mjd420nova]

You are not alone, I'm sure. My wife had her e-mail account with AT&T hacked a couple weeks ago. They got in and sent a bunch of spam to all on the contact list. Everything was solved by changing her password. Then Saturday, whoever it was kept trying to get in with the old password, tried so many times that the account got locked out and blocked. A quick inquiry with at&t resolved the problem and the password was changed again. I hope that is the last of it. I suppose that any account could get locked out this way and it would be a real pain and a drain on at&t if it became epidemic.

[coastie65]

mjd420nova, on 21 June 2012 - 06:42 AM, said:

You are not alone, I'm sure. My wife had her e-mail account with AT&T hacked a couple weeks ago. They got in and sent a bunch of spam to all on the contact list. Everything was solved by changing her password. Then Saturday, whoever it was kept trying to get in with the old password, tried so many times that the account got locked out and blocked. A quick inquiry with at&t resolved the problem and the password was changed again. I hope that is the last of it. I suppose that any account could get locked out this way and it would be a real pain and a drain on at&t if it became epidemic.

I went rond and round with the support guys ( in South Asia odf course ) Right now, I am using my Mom's account. I dumped my account thos morning as I could reset the password. Whe I typed in the info such as email address, location ( U.S. ), State and zip code, It said it didn't match the information on file. Tells me it was changed. I got mad when they kept saying that just need to redo the password and told them the problem was still with the server and they need to get off their thumbs and lock that thing down. Until they cleaned up and secured the server, the problem would still be there. Microsoft worrying about Windows 8 and that tablet when they should be worrying about what is already in place. Like I told them, we don't need a new operating system every two or three years. MSN was fine the whole time it was cobranded with Verizon. Verizon dropped it as well as the Cobranding with Yahoo and AOL.

[coastie65]

Okay, I was nosing around some more on this and trying to reset things. On a part that said " Most Trusted PC " an address came up that wasn't here. it was " an*****@blumail.org That is a scam operation and has apparently hacked into the MSN servers and is hijacking accounts. I sent a message directly to abuse@msn.com, but don't know if they'll look at it or not.

[coastie65]

Okay, a final update on this. I have recoverd my account and all is doing fine. I had started noticing the same anomalies with my Mom's account, buy they were sporatic in nature. I jumped in and changed the password, which stopped that. To be honest, neither password was all that strong, but I can guarantee they are now. Everything is fine now although it appears I lost all of my favorites ( book marks ) as well as my address book in the process.

[coastie65]

Will add their letter ( at bottom ) and my response. I am through dealing with those dummies.

Attached File(s)

•  MSN.txt (3.74K)
  Number of downloads: 11

[coastie65]

Received an email through my Mom's account on Saturday from MSN. It was a PM and had to log in to see it. Apparantly they had escalated it ( hopefully to a competent person ). I gave them a brief, but accurate synopsis of the problem and my conclusions from what I was able to do and find on this end. This morning, I noticed my sign in avatar was back ( instead of the MSN butterfly ), but signed in on my Mom's account anyway. I didn't stay on long, and signed out. I then signed in on my account and it ran for about two hours before quitting ( communications Module again ). I signed back in and have been online since with no issues. Did lose my address book as well as my bookmarks. May try uninstalling Windows Live Essentials and then reinstalling it and see if that helps. I do know that in reinstating the account the " Most Trusted PC " was shown as an******@blumail.org instead of what it should have been. When I told them last week about it and that they need to remove anything with an @blumail.org address and block it, they said they couldn't do that and to contact the Webmaster or abuse @blumail.org. I told them they had to be kidding. blumail.org is a renegade operation and a host for all sorts of illegal activities and then told them to do their homework. I guess they got tired of my rants and my trashing of MSN and finally started looking into it as things seem to working fine again. We'll have to see how much more I can recover now. This was never a security issue in this computer, but in their servers. It is rather frustrating when you have to go through a bunch incompetents.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 05 July 2012 - 09:34 AM

[Flashorn]

Hey coastie !

Incompetents are everywhere these days it seems.

My Daughter's Hotmail account was also broken into and she lost all of her contacts as well.

I suggested she use Gmail instead and she couldn't be happier. Security is tighter
and you can check who and when someone accessed the account for the last week.

Why not just let go of Hotmail and open one on gmail instead? I have one that is about 4 years old
now, and was notified last year when someone was trying to access my account. Changed the password
and been good ever since.
OH! and they use SSL and not just for the signing in like hotmail.

FLASHORN.

This post has been edited by Flashorn: 05 July 2012 - 10:59 AM

[coastie65]

Flashorn, on 05 July 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

Hey coastie !

Incompetents are everywhere these days it seems.

My Daughter's Hotmail account was also broken into and she lost all of her contacts as well.

I suggested she use Gmail instead and she couldn't be happier. Security is tighter
and you can check who and when someone accessed the account for the last week.

Why not just let go of Hotmail and open one on gmail instead? I have one that is about 4 years old
now, and was notified last year when someone was trying to access my account. Changed the password
and been good ever since.
OH! and they use SSL and not just for the signing in like hotmail.

FLASHORN.

Hey Flash, I don't use Hotmail, but they went through hotmail and got into Windows Live Mail and the rest as near as I can tell. I am using SSL as well. I was aware of the hotmail hack as that has been out there, then they started getting into Windows Live Mail and I guess into MSN. Hotmail is on my homepage and I can preview the stuff without opening my Windows LIve Box. I sure had my go round with those folks at MSN though. I also have an earthlink box that I use as public box and that has never been hacked. I have changed the passwords on both the primary account as well as the secondary account.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 05 July 2012 - 02:56 PM

[coastie65]

All seems fine. My email is not making it to my inbox though. It is being redirected to annvirginia@blumail.org and then sent back as undelivered. It would appear that the idiot has been shut down. I was ready to lay waste to the blumail.org servers in that it would have taken them a lot of time and money to get back online. May have to just change my email address which is going to be a headache.

[LiveBrianD]

Check the settings in hotmail for email forwarding.

[coastie65]

LiveBrianD, on 07 July 2012 - 12:38 PM, said:

Check the settings in hotmail for email forwarding.

I was thinking of that the other day, but couldn't find them in Windows Live Mail which I use.

UPDATE: Thanks. I found it and it was being forwarded to annvirginia@blumail.org. I removed that and chnged it to do not forward so we should be fine now. I remembered seeing it, but not where when I was having all the problems. I am going to try it by emailing a friend as she will usually send a reply. Getting my notifications again ( thank You FaceBook ), so all is well again.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 07 July 2012 - 01:45 PM