My contacts are telling me that my Hotmail account is sending them a Viagra email. I’ve changed the Hotmail password but the problem persists. How can I stop this?
Cherie
It looks like your Hotmail account has been compromised in the past. The spammer stole the email addresses of your contacts; and that’s the reason they are receiving Viagra email messages from you. It’s also possible that you are all victims of a spoof.
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Even though is seems that the messages come from your Hotmail address chances are that spammers are sending the offensive Viagra emails from another account, one which is probably fictitious. Email spoofing is very common and involves masking the actual email address of the sender so that the message appears to originate from a different source. And this is something spammers excel at because this way the message seems more genuine and legitimate.
Note: Checking for messages sent from your Hotmail account might not provide conclusive proof of it being hacked as messages can quickly be deleted from the Sent items folder.
How to stop or prevent Hotmail account from sending Viagra emails?
Sadly there is no quick and direct solution. Once spammers have got hold of your email address and that of your contacts, it’s highly unlikely that they will stop bombarding the accounts with junk messages. However, here are a couple of solutions but they may not work in all cases.
Ask your contacts to create message rules which are like instructions that will filter incoming messages. They can be set up in all popular email programs / services and can get rid of messages that contain the word Viagra. For more, read how to stop spam in Outlook Express using message rules. But spammers are smart too and may change the spelling (V!agra) or the contents of the message. It’s a constant fight with these abusers!
The second option is to request everyone (or at least those facing this problem) to use an anti-spam filter. Some of these are available for free but the really good ones cost money… though not much.
