Hotmail Problems

[Carl the Llama]

Well if you have me on your MSN list its likely you have received a spam email by me, for the record, I never send emails to anyone in my contact list so if you have received one by me then you will know that it is spam... My problem is yesterday it sent out 249 emails to every contact on my list and now my account has been blocked, when I try to sign into my account it just says there has been an error and asks me to sign into the account again... and again and again and again, I have signed in now about 40 times, I even changed my password to a bunch of random letters and numbers and it still does not let me sign into my account, problem is I have checked to see if there is a problem with the password (by just typing random letters) and it said that my password is incorrect so every time it loads up the page that says "There has been an error please sign in again, sorry for the inconvenience" I must be typing the correct password and Microsoft just picks up the very same error.

How am I to begin verifying my account if it wont let me get to the damned page where I have to enter my damned mobile phone number (the page which for some god forsaken reason I was able to get to this morning but did not have my mobile with me) now I have my phone and the damned page just wont load, I have been trying since this afternoon over at my sisters house so please can someone tell me what I must do.

Second of all I wish to know how in the world some bot or hacker could be sending emails through my account, I only discovered this recently and it pisses me off to no end, when I found out I changed my password immediately and still the messages kept sending, I have Avirar Antivirus on my computer along with Malware Bytes SUPERAntiSpyware and Spybot Search & Destroy and they all get run every single week so how are these bots/hackers getting through my defences?

[Iceglow]

I'm not a fan of programs I'm unfamiliar with, those anti-virus and anti-spyware programs you're running I've never even heard of. I know paying for it can be a real bitch but sometimes it's worth sticking with something like McAffee where at least you know what you're getting with. I'd consider running a trial version of AVG complete internet security on your computer for 30 days, immediately scan for ALL security breaches on a full scan. Once thats done any malware redirecting your browser to a phishing site will be sorted out. I was recently infected with some malware once my antivirus license ran out. I was out of protection for around 3 weeks and got infected just browsing as normal. I've since paid the money for McAffee and it's no longer an issue.

Edit: noticed you're running spybot search and destroy. That program has seriously gone downhill of late in my opinion. As has Lavasoft's AdAware. Get yourself a complete internet security program, the combined firewall, adware, root kit, antivirus, pc tuning options all synchronized to work perfectly with each other leaving no gaps is far more secure. AVG do a free 30 day trial. Once that is up my main recommendations are in order; McAfee, AVG Paid edition and then Panda.

[Carl the Llama]

All the programs I run are recommended to me from Tech forums, I am always sceptical of installing rogue spyware so I always check on various tech forums before I even think of downloading the program.

[Jiro]

I can vouch for Spybot and SUPERAntiSpyware at least. It's not a fault with those.

[crono_logical]

Ew, McAfee, it needs to die in a fire It might have been great 10 years ago, but it's bloaty these days

Avira Antivir is ok, even less memory hungry than AVG, but I removed it from my machine because of the obnoxious "upgrade from free to pro" popups every time I logged in, and went back to AVG Free