hacked email account what to do?

big bear

A bear on a mission!
Just what I don't need right now but somehow someone is sending dodgy emails/ads to my contacts. I only discovered it as it sent one to my father in law. He opened the email will this cause a virus in his email account?

What can I do? Will changing my password help??

I've had the email address for 10years & don't want to change it if it can be helped.
 
change your password and then email/text people in your contacts to warn them not to open any 'odd' emails.
 
I think you will find that changing your password is not enough if your account has been hacked into by " professionals "

Usually you need to change your account altogether.

Hot mail and Yahoo have the highest incidence rates and Google the least.

I am no expert but perhaps the following article will help you, also 2 of our friends recently have had a similar incident and had to change their addresses...........

If you can still log in to the account, you should immediately change your password and change or remove all personal information. As I wrote in Is changing my password enough? it's not enough to change just your password - you need to change any and all information that a scammer could use to reset your password and regain access to your account.
"The problem is that most of the accounts that are being hijacked like this are free accounts with little or no customer service. "
If you cannot log in to the account, your options are much more limited.
You should immediately contact your email service provider. Now, on the surface that sounds both simple and like it should be a quick remedy. And if your email is being provided by your ISP or someone else with real phone support, it may be.
The problem is that most of the accounts that are being hijacked like this are free accounts with little or no customer service. Hot mail and Yahoo accounts are the most frequently compromised, and coincidentally both offer no telephone-based support. You must first access their on-line support system (perhaps having to create a new account on their system to do so), and submit your problem via a web form, email or in a support forum.
All that takes time. Response will not be quick, if at all.
This is the "price" of free email accounts.
In a case like this I would:

The article goes on with so much more advice but as I said the 2 people I know who had this happen to them found that the only option for them was to change to another email provider
 
there was a link, it was advertising trainers in some shop
 
The other thing to note is... if the email is being accessed by outlook or windows live mail (an application on your computer), it could be a virus on your computer as well, so it is important to check your computer first.

The 2nd thing (after changing the password!) is to change any secret question information that may be asked when re-setting your password. This information is within the settings pages of your email provider.

If you check your email when in public, do you... use any open wifi connections, cafe's, train stations, buses, hotels? There is little security here and anybody nearby that can pick up the wireless signals can get your account password.

Lastly, if say somebody else got infected with a virus that had both yours and your dad's email addresses, it could be sending emails from anywhere in the world once they have a list of accounts. There is nothing stopping anybody sending an email with YOUR email address. You do not need any account access, passwords or details to do this.

Pierce
 
Gosh that is scary.

In the cases of my 2 friends ones emails were from an Australian site and the others from Nigeria.
 
Thanks so much. I'll change my email address. What is a good provider to use?
 
Also, if you use your email for any online banking or similarly sensitive stuff you should change your bank passwords if they're the same as your email password as those accounts could also have been compromised. This happened to my mum and a friend recently but they didn't change email accounts just passwords and that seemed to sort it out. What a pain for you x
 
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