MSN Messenger - account stealing / spoofing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adrian
  • Start date Start date
A

Adrian

Last night my son, 13, told me that he and a friend had logged on to MSN
Messenger using his friends account and discovered that HE (my son) was
already online. My son then had a conversation with someone who had
apparently managed to reset his password and then use his messenger account,
read his e-mails and upset his friends with some fairly nasty messages.

Does anyone have any experience of this, and is there a fix somewhere or a
way to prevent this happening? We have all the latest anti-virus software
and firewalls but as the account is held (presumably) at Microsoft I don't
see what I can do.

Any ideas would be gratefully received as I really don't want to expose my
son and his friends to this again.

Many thanks,


Adrian
 
Greetings Adrian,

There's nothing you can do to prevent someone from resetting your account, besides having a
decent secret question set on your account at Passport Services. You can change your secret
question here:
https://memberservices.passport.net/ppsecure/MSRV_ChangeSQ.srf

Keep in mind that just knowing the secret question doesn't immediately allow someone to
"reset" the password on the account, they also need to know personal information like your
address and postal code.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
 
Sorry to hear of your trouble! Two pieces of
advice.....one: contact microsoft and explain your
situation. Two: install a spy blocker on your
computer.....I use "spyblocker" and have had wonderful
results from using it. Obviously you have been infected
with some kind of trojan virus. I hope my suggestions
help.
 
Thanks Catzspaz and Jonathan.

I did a full virus search of my son's PC and discovered a trojan (now
removed) and a virus called FDoS_MSN.gen which I can't find any reference to
in virus lists. He has also changed his password and is under strict
instruction to keep it secret!

The virus appears to have com from a site called mess.be

Adrian
 
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