[Mary_fr]

Hey!!
Someone hacked my mail. I think he/she answered my hotmail secret question. After answering it, they changed the password, accessed to PERSONAL AND VERY IMPORTANT information, and to other sites that contain security settings (such as other passwords). They closed my hotmail account and other importat accounts. Thanks God, I was able to reaccess my hotmail account because they did not change the secret question, but I lost a lot of information, messenger contacts and other important stuff. Someone told me there is a way to know who did this by knowing the "physical addresses" (or something like that: IP addresses) that entered to my account that specific day. Is this possible? Or is there another way to know who did this? :mad:
This is very serious, please help me as soon as possible.

[CaptainForest]

Change your secret question and password now.

And for further information, don't make it so obvious. For example, my secret question might say, “What is your mother's madden name?”. Now do I answer correctly (eg, Smith…NO), instead I say Williams…which isn't right, but this provides me with an extra layer of security. The trick is to remember the answer.

Is it possible for you to find out the IP address of the person? YES. But that might not do you any good. They could have used an internet café, or a library or used someone else's wireless network.

My advice would be to forget it unless they stole some kind of top secret documents. Change your security settings and move on.

And odds are (since you said hotmail), that the person who cracked into your account might be someone you know.

[Mary_fr]

The first thing I did was changing my secret question and password. I cannot forget this because they stole very significant information. Could you please help me with the IP address and the whole process that I must follow?? I think I should try.

[CaptainForest]

Never store significant information in a hotmail account…

But I digress…

You need to contact the police, since you will need a court order for Hotmail to turn that information over. Well, you can ask them nicely, but odds are they will say no, or better yet, just ignore the request.

If this is a serious matter, the police will get a warrant make Hotmail tell them the IP address used. Then they go to the IP provider and eventually they will track down this perp.

[nwsflash]

Hi there is an email address you can use

[email protected]

You will need to send :

To report a security or privacy issue, send an e-mail message to [email protected], and include the following information:

Your first name
Your last name
Your full sign-in name (e-mail address)
The e-mail address to which you want MSN to send the response
A complete description of the issue

Its worth giving them a try see if they can help;)

The info you send needs to match 100% with what you gave when you signed up for your account, our they may just blank you as a hacker.

[ScottGem]

I agree with Captain Forest. If you want to pursue this you will need to file a police report, reporting the theft of the info. They will then (possibly) help you see if you can obtain the actual identity of the thief. The likelihood of them successfully doing so is pretty small however.

[fredg]

Hi,
As others have stated, you probably won't get what you are looking for.
At one time, years ago, I did the same thing; that is, store stuff online that was important to me. Since then, I have learned the "hard way" not to do that.
I know it's too late to think about that now, for this particular issue, but your own computer, and maybe burning the info to a CD-R or DVD is one of the best ways to maintain security.
I do wish you the best; and good luck.