Got I hacked - DO NOT REPLY to an email

paqman said:

RRP said:

Oh - and in case anyone is wondering the perp sat up a hotmail account and I have never even had a hotmail account EVER so that isn't an account I have control over!  

if they got your contact list but not your account, it could mean that you have delegated permissions to applications.  What type of email is it? (gmail, other?)

Buckwoody Egger said:

if using xfinity account means “logging into xfinity account using a browser then navigating in the browser to check email” then that is essentially webmail. all the data is on the comcast mail server and the browser is acting like a dumb terminal and interacting with the server. 

imap and smtp are ways that a computer (or smartphone) will make a connection to that same mail server. they download all the emails locally and store them. when you delete them locally, the app tries to keep the server in sync. 

so something on your imac is broken. mail server name, account name, or password. 

the first thing if you haven’t already is to make sure you have changed your xfinity account and comcast mail password.  they are hopefully the same. do that through the browser. 

then you will need to go into you imac mail program settings for the account and use the new password to restore that connection. repeat for iphone if you use one. 

as far as what data is at risk.  i would report the fraud to xfinity. they should be able to tell you, after a few days of research, if they have an opinion on how the account contacts were accessed. one of my webmail accounts did that for me some time ago. i don’t know much about this stuff. what we do know is that they used a hotmail to send emails to your contacts and not your comcast address. so maybe someone else has a valuable opinion. 

as far as what’s in your mailbox. its rare that people download emails and don’t leave a copy on the server. you will want to have an opinion on anything in that comcast email accounts and folders that you would not want someone snooping through. if you have tax returns or anything medical, etc with you or your wife’s social security. if you ever emailed bank account and routing numbers or credit card numbers. anything like that, someone with your account and pw could download and rifle through at their leisure. hopefully you didn’t but good to check. if you are concerned about them having this info, then we can help you with the links to lock your credit down. it’s free and you can do all the credit bureaus within a couple hours. 

so that is why i was recommending a helper.  not that you can’t do it solo, but just to help stay on task because frustration will get the better of any of us. 

Buckwoody Egger said:

Glad to hear it Ron, no debt or repayment allowed!  Opportunity to help the Egging gasket legend is more than enough.

Other loose ends if you haven’t already…  make sure to report fraud on that Hotmail account to Hotmail so they shut it down.  Also I am not familiar with Xfinity and Comcast email service but there are probably account recovery settings where you provide an alternate email, cell #, etc.  That’s for password resets or lockouts so they are contacting you. You will want to confirm that those are not changed to that hotmail or some random #.  If they were, write it down to report and change to your contact info.  That would also be a prompt to really do a due diligence on what’s on file in that email account— inbox or sent. 

Just something to think about. That’s also the risk we take sending that info over anything not encrypted - various texts and most emails are not encrypted and can be compromised.  Hackers are kind of like people with metal detectors on a beach playing a digital version of finders keepers.