Spam

[Infrared digital]

I recently had my hotmail email account spam out to all the names in my address book an advertisement for a company that sells electronic goods.

For a start, how can I stop this and secondly, the spammed email has the direct web address for the company - do I email them and tell them to get to ...

Has this happened to anyone else ?

Thanks

N

[judderman]

This has happened to a friend of mine - also sends instant messages via msn messenger to me advertising the electronic goods.

How this is happening is a good question. The guy hasn't got a PC at home, only an iPhone, but a PC at work. I suspect that your account must have been compromised at some point - otherwise how could they have got your entire address book?

E-mailing the company and telling them where to go would probably be entirely pointless. Secure your hotmail account, change the password. Make sure your home or work pc isn't compromised.

Spyware is becoming so damn complicated nowadays that when some friends PC has been hijacked, I don't even bother to try and remove the offending software, I go straight to a reinstall.

[Infrared digital]

The address it came for is one that I night use once every 2 to 3 months so I think it happened in my absence.