[Frankwlc]

My Hotmail account has started sending out random spam mail to people who are listed in my contacts. One friend has had 15 of these emails in one day. The emails have no subject and only contain a weblink which is usually different with every mail sent out - e.g. http://caribbean-vacation-rent.com/indexi.html

As I am completely oblivious to these emails being sent and I have no control over them, I am at a loss as to what to do. Deleting the account completely would seem to be the sure way of stopping this but as I have that email address registered with a number of online forums etc. I am reluctant to do this.

Would removing my friend's email addresses from the contact list be a solution?

[NedFlanders]

Not got hotmail, but I had the same thing happen with a Gmail account of mine, that I normally access through OE, so don't go into the web interface.

Turns out that someone in China had logged into it and sent spam to all the contacts. How they worked out the password is beyond me, presumably a security flaw in Gmail. But that's what I'd suspect. Hotmail, like Gmail, will let you check who logged in when and where from if you look at the bottom of the page (I guess).
You'll need to change yr password and security details. They already have yr address book so no point in deleting that.

[Frankwlc]

Thanks. In the short term I have changed my password to something more cryptic. I'll monitor things for a few days and see if that is enough to stop the problem.