What To Do If Your Hotmail Account Gets Hacked ?

Have you been receiving a lot of junk mail lately ? Have your email contacts reported receiving an email from you that you have absolutely no recollection of sending ? Or have they reported getting an instant message from you which you have never sent ? If the answer to any of these questions is a 'yes', then it is very likely that somebody has hacked your Hotmail account or stolen your Hotmail password. This is a very serious situation, and it is possible that this hacker may make use of your Hotmail account for illegal and even criminal purposes.

Steps To Be Taken By You Once You Find Out Your Hotmail Account Is Hacked :

Now that you have a strong idea that your Hotmail account has been hacked, you shall need to take immediate steps to retrieve the situation. We present a list of immediate actionable steps to be taken by you. However, before we go into the details, in case of any confusion in following the instructions given by us, we advise you to please use the Hotmail customer service contact number and get the help of the Microsoft service team to help deal with the problem.

Step 1 : Free Your PC From Malware Or Virus

Download and install a reputed anti-virus and anti-malware system such as the Microsoft Security Essentials (for a Windows 7 operating system) and Microsoft Defender ( for a Windows 8 operating system). Make certain of running a full scan of your system. And only after that, change your Hotmail account password.

Step 2 : Reset Your Hotmail Account Password

Once you have fully completed the scanning of your system, log in to your Hotmail account and reset your password. While selecting a new password, you shall need to make completely sure that you use something that is totally different from the old one. Please do not use any of the commonly used passwords that may be found in many accounts, such as "passwd" or "admin". Use something much more complicated. Make use of capital letters, symbols, lower case letters and numbers. But do make sure that this new password may be easily remembered by you. Run your password through Microsoft's password checker to make sure it has never been used before by anyone. And once set, make sure of changing your password at regular intervals.

Step 3 : Change Your Account Settings

Make sure of resetting your Hotmail account settings. Click on the "more mail settings" field in the "Options" tab and follow the instructions given on how to reset the various options available in your Hotmail account.

Step 4 : Get Back The Deleted Mail

One of the most important signs that your Hotmail account has been hacked is the sheer number of deleted mail. Once the Microsoft mail server has an inkling that your account is being hacked, it saves all the deleted mail in a special "Deleted" folder. Click on this folder, and opt for for "restore deleted mail" option. Now you are good to go!

Summary:

Hacking of the Hotmail account of private individuals is a serious problem that has become very common of late. The first step in dealing with it is to check for the signs that tell you whether your Hotmail account has been hacked or not. Then the instructions given in this article should be followed step by step to help in retrieving the situation.
Image Credit: Stuart Miles

Author Bio:

Smith is a professional programmer from NewYork , who has often been the victim of a Hotmail hack, and has found using the Hotmail customer service contact number a mighty useful way to deal with this mini-crisis. Besides helping out people who are under attack from dangerous hackers, He dabbles in photography and hates global warming.