There was a mail sent from my hotmail account yesterday morning(06/11/09) to all my contacts asking them to click on a link for an unlocked apple phone.

I also noticed that I have lost my mail in my Inbox & Sent Items(more than one month of mails). I have also lost some of the folders on which I have kep information for long term use.

I have since changed my Hotmail password to a stronger one.

I desparately need your help in retrieving my lost mail. 

I would also be grateful for any advice on how to prevent such hijacks to my hotmail account in the future. I have since downloaded and installed MS Security Essentials as my Anti-virus software.

Thanks in advance.

Raj

Email address: {removed email address}

Hi Raj, 

I have engaged additional resources to help restore your deleted messages.  I have moved the deleted messages back to your Inbox so that you can review them. Unfortunately, this does not guarantee that all messages that are missing would be available.  

Note: We cannot restore folders.  Only messages from missing folders that are still available in our servers can be restored. 

As for your concern regarding the messages that were sent from your account, I suggest that you visit the link to the Solutions post below.  It gives information about the increase in reports that we have received about accounts been hijacked and spam mails been sent to customer's contact list without customer's knowledge. 

http://windowslivehelp.com/solutions/safety/archive/2009/04/29/recent-reports-of-account-hijacks.aspx

Alvin F - many thanks for your help. I really appreciate your kind efforts for restoring my mail back.

I would like to know - why the mails are removed from the Inbox & other folders. Is it done intentionally by whoever who hijacked the account. Could it be possible that the mail is being scanned for information about bank details, credit cards, etc.

What can be done to prevent this - I have already followed the instructions posted by you as above. Is that enough?

Is it possible to keep a backup of the mailbox itself?

Could you kindly give some advice & information on the above?

Regards,

Raj

Hi Raj, I’m sorry to hear that this issue affected your account. Make sure that you've also changed your secret question and answer and alternate e-mail address as suggested. You can also check on the link below to get in touch with PC Safety line for additional assistance when it comes to protecting your computer:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/default.mspx

As what was mentioned, one of the causes of this is malware. This is the reason for the messages that were generated from your account and your deleted ones.

If you want to keep a back-up of your messages, you can opt to use the Windows Live Mail e-mail client program. This program lets you download your messages into your local computer’s folder so you have access to them straight from your hard drive. You can download the latest version at http://download.live.com/wlmail .

Note: To see if your computer meets the system requirements of Windows Live Mail, please visit the following link:

http://download.live.com/SystemRequirements.aspx