2 Answers

If your account has been compromised—or hacked—it means that someone stole your password and might be using your account to access your personal information or send spam. To recover your account and prevent it from being hacked again, follow these steps.

Install an antivirus program on your computer

Most hackers get your password through malware (malicious software) that's been installed on your computer without your knowledge (for example, when you download a new screen saver or toolbar). It’s important to clear your computer of viruses or malware before you change your password. That way, the hackers won’t get your new password.

After you install an antivirus program, set up the program to get updates and scan your computer on a regular basis. If you're running Windows, you can download and install Microsoft Security Essentials for free.

Change your password

After you install an antivirus program, try to sign in to your account.

If you can still sign in to your account, you should change your password right away.

If you can’t change your password, try to reset your password.

Prevent your account from being hacked in the future

You can take the following actions to keep your account safer and make it easier to recover if it’s ever compromised again.

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Create a strong password for your Hotmail account

Make sure your operating system has the latest updates

Never reply to email asking for your Hotmail password

Be careful signing in to your Hotmail account from public computers or unsecured wireless networks

Make your account easier to recover in the future

Change your security question
Reset your account settings

Since someone else had access to your account, we've cleared your account settings and removed any send-as addresses, email forwarding, auto-replies, and linked accounts. You'll need to take the following steps to reset these options.

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Reset sending/receiving mail, forwarding, and auto replies

Reset linked IDs

Reset reply-to addresses
Restore deleted email and contacts

As soon as we detected that you might be hacked, we started saving your deleted messages in a safe place. In the left pane of your Hotmail window, click the Deleted folder, scroll to the bottom of the window, and then click recover deleted messages.

Hotmail will recover as many messages as possible and put them in your Deleted folder. If you don't see the deleted messages that you wanted, it means they're permanently lost.

If some or all of your contacts have been deleted, you might be able to restore them. See Restore deleted contacts to your Microsoft account.

Note

Email deleted from children's accounts can't be restored. This way, parents can be confident that when they delete messages from their children’s accounts, they stay deleted.

Tracey Wilson