I seem to be sending SPAM from my hotmail account. How can I make sure my e-mail address has not been hijacked or how do I stop the SPAM? All my contacts are complaining.2 people need an answerI do too

Change your Hotmail password immediately, and follow the other steps on Hotmail's Account Compromise - Unauthorized Account Access page.Boulder Computer MavenMicrosoft Most Valuable Professional

"BBsMiMi" wrote in message news:Email removed for privacy...I seem to be sending SPAM from my hotmail account. How can I make sure my e-mail address has not been hijacked or how do I stop the SPAM? All my contacts are complaining.If In addition to the advice from Steve Winograd, you should consider the possibility that your computer might have become infected with Malware - which could have harvested your email passwords and/or the content of your Address Book.SPAM could have emanated directly from your Hotmail account - if the perpetrator has gained access to your user name and password. Alternatively, the perpetrator might have forged your email address - and has used it to send messages from elsewhere.You haven't told us whether you are using a web browser (such as Internet Explorer) to send mail via the Hotmail webmail interface - or whether you are using a mail client on your computer to send emails via the outgoing mail server at smtp.live.com. (With Win XP, you can use Outlook Express or any similar mail client program to send / receive emails to / from your Hotmail account.)If you are using the webmail interface to access your Hotmail account, sign into the account and check the content of the various folders. The presence of SPAM messages in your Sent Items folder would prove beyond doubt that someone has gained access to your account. However, the absence of any problem messages the Sent Items Folder does not necessarily mean that the perpetrator has not used your account, because he could also have deleted them from the webmail interface.If you are using Outlook Express (or another mail client program), check the Sent Items folder. Similar assumptions apply.If your computer has become infected with Malware, the perpetrator might have harvested contact names from your Address Book. Consequently, you should take steps to identify and remove the infection (if any). The first step is to perform a full scan with the Antivirus software on your computer. (I trust that you do have up to date security software.)However, no security software can ever be 100% effective, so I also recommend that you download and install the free versions of the following utilities:Malwarebytes - from www.malwarebytes.org andSuperAntiSpyware - www.superantispyware.com.Perform a full system scan with Malwarebytes, followed by a full scan with SuperAntiSpyware.Finally, I suggest you perform an on-line scan with the free Online Scanner from ESET - at www.eset.com/online-scanner.