Virus in email account

[iroro]

Hi guys

My hotmail email account seems to be infected with a virus, i have attempted multiple searches online but unfortunately i have had no success. I check my email in the browser, often have a bit of spam but i am cleaning out my inbox little by little. The virus sends emails to all of my contacts that I have, I have had to remove all of my contacts so it cannot do anything. Hotmail blocked my account due to the amount of emails that the account was sending. I would like to not have to close the account as I have a couplde of important things (ie. Steam, Forums) registered to it, is there another way around this issue?

Thanks
-Iroro

 

[cottonball]

iroro,

Rather than closing it you should immediately change your password!!

 

[iroro]

I did, when hotmail block your account they force you to change your password, it block my account 5 times in one month. since I have deleted my contacts I have not had my account blocked, I still change my password on a monthly basis though.

 

[Layback Bear]

I know of no way of fixing this problem without closing the old account and starting a new one. Don't swap anything from old account to new account. With the new account you must be very careful what emails you open or it will all start again.

 

[iroro]

I dont think it was from an email that I recieved, it was from the windows live space thing, this started when about 100 people added me.

 

[Layback Bear]

Your email is still infected how ever you got the infection.
What anti virus are you using?

 

[Alejandro85]

Obviously email accounts by themselves cannot catch viruses (they only hold data, don't run programs there).

Do you use external access to use it? (like POP, IMAP, etc) Or just web access only?

If you're using an email client, it may be a virus in your computer that uses that program on your behalf to spread itself. But if you use solely web access, then maybe you fall prey of a phishing site and gave your password without knowing it, so someone can login or use a bot to send mails.

In any case, run a good scanner on your PCs, change all your passwords (NEVER use the same on 2 places) and be extra careful on any webpage that ask you to login.

 

[iroro]

I use it souly on the browser, change my password every month and run a scan on my computer every week (not the cheap AV either, it SOPHOS). I am all about security, I do not know how else to stop it. As I said before, all of a sudden on Windows Live space people started adding me, when i accepted a couple of people was when the emails started.

 

[alikhan]

Obviously email accounts by themselves cannot catch viruses (they only hold data, don't run programs there).

Do you use external access to use it? (like POP, IMAP, etc) Or just web access only?

If you're using an email client, it may be a virus in your computer that uses that program on your behalf to spread itself. But if you use solely web access, then maybe you fall prey of a phishing site and gave your password without knowing it, so someone can login or use a bot to send mails.

In any case, run a good scanner on your PCs, change all your passwords (NEVER use the same on 2 places) and be extra careful on any webpage that ask you to login.

Actually they do run programs . The virus can be created as a Word document and uploaded it to an Internet newsgroup. Anyone who downloaded the document and opened it would trigger the virus. The virus would then send the document (and therefore itself) in an e-mail message to the people in the person's address book. The e-mail message contained a friendly note that included the person's name, so the recipient would open the document, thinking it was harmless. The virus would then new messages from the recipient's machine.

Also the virus may contained a piece of code as an attachment. Virus can took advantage of the programming language built into Microsoft Word called VBA i guess , It is a complete programming language and it can be used to write programs that do things like modify files and send e-mail messages.People who double-clicked on the attachment launched the code. I have read that some do have an auto-execute feature too. A programmer can insert a program into a document that runs instantly whenever the document is opened. It is really more of a Trojan horse distributed by e-mail than it is a virus. all this is more then enough to create huge mess for the infected computer .

 

[Layback Bear]

Your email is infected your computer is infected. Until you decide to close your email account and start a new one not using Windows live space you will keep getting infected. Why would you give your email address to 100 plus strangers? By the time this Windows live space gets done and those 100 plus strangers pass your email address around who knows how many thousands of people have your email address.
Things to do.
1. Close your email account
2. Start a new email account with different account and password
3. Change all your passwords using a known clean computer
4. Inform all your known friends of your new email address
5. Inform all your known friends what happened and inform them their email address and passwords might also be compromised.
NOTE: Things like this could of also made your computer and others part of a botnet and many other bad things.

Please read this.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/botnet.aspx
If and when you decide to clean your computer and need help, just ask and we will help.

 

[Alejandro85]

Obviously email accounts by themselves cannot catch viruses (they only hold data, don't run programs there).

Do you use external access to use it? (like POP, IMAP, etc) Or just web access only?

If you're using an email client, it may be a virus in your computer that uses that program on your behalf to spread itself. But if you use solely web access, then maybe you fall prey of a phishing site and gave your password without knowing it, so someone can login or use a bot to send mails.

In any case, run a good scanner on your PCs, change all your passwords (NEVER use the same on 2 places) and be extra careful on any webpage that ask you to login.

Actually they do run programs . The virus can be created as a Word document and uploaded it to an Internet newsgroup. Anyone who downloaded the document and opened it would trigger the virus. The virus would then send the document (and therefore itself) in an e-mail message to the people in the person's address book. The e-mail message contained a friendly note that included the person's name, so the recipient would open the document, thinking it was harmless. The virus would then new messages from the recipient's machine.

Also the virus may contained a piece of code as an attachment. Virus can took advantage of the programming language built into Microsoft Word called VBA i guess , It is a complete programming language and it can be used to write programs that do things like modify files and send e-mail messages.People who double-clicked on the attachment launched the code. I have read that some do have an auto-execute feature too. A programmer can insert a program into a document that runs instantly whenever the document is opened. It is really more of a Trojan horse distributed by e-mail than it is a virus. all this is more then enough to create huge mess for the infected computer .

Yes, agree 100%, but that doesn't means that the virus runs at the mail server. It runs where you open it, in your local version of Word, your computer runs the malicious VBA code inside and it sends thought another mail. The mailbox is just a medium of distribution, but doesn't participate actively in anything, just transfers data. The mail account itself cannot be infected, but it can contain infected mails.

The OP probably go one of such Word documents or something like that, that began spreading itself using the mail. Maybe disabling POP access from the web mail can help, given that he doesn't uses it.