I own a Hotmail account which someone hacked into. I managed to get back the password which they had changed, as they must have felt guilty and sent the new password to my brother on MSN Messenger. I went into my account which I hadn't been able to get on for months - turns out they have caused a lot of trouble for me - changed passwords for other websites which I can no longer access, sent out personal emails to family and friends. They also contacted my friends and family with vulgar and abusive language pretending it was me!
As you can imagine, I am very upset and angry, it has really got me down. I have a feeling I know who it is but cannot point my finger yet. I was told that if I contacted MSN support they could give me all of the IP numbers which signed onto my account at that particular time, and find out who it was. Is this possible?
To be honest, I'm still fairly shocked at how often this question comes up. Apparently there's a lot of account hacking going on, though poor password management is actually more likely. Regardless of exactly how, accounts are hacked into, and havoc often results.
I'm not at all surprised that people want to track down the culprit.
Unfortunately, for most of us, I believe that the news is not good.
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Tracking down who logged into your account is highly unlikely. There are at least two huge issues at play here:
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MSN Hotmail may simply not keep that information. I mean, that's a lot of data that they would have to track, given the millions of subscribers and millions upon millions of logins that happen every day. From a purely practical point of view, I can't imagine them keeping that information, or if they do, keeping it for any length of time.
But, having said that, it's certainly possible that they do, so...
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They're not about to give that information to just anyone. In fact, I would be very concerned if they did give it if you simply asked. There are major privacy and security issues that result if they were to provide that information easily. There may even be possible legal liability issues for MSN if they responded to that type of request.
The third issue is simply that the IP address may not be enough to help you anyway. See the related articles below for more on why that might be.
So, ultimately, I believe that the information, if it exists at all, is just not available to "mere mortals" such as you and I. In fact, you and I want it to be difficult to get, simply to protect our own privacy in normal use.
I've said this before: if this type of information is available at all, I believe it would take law enforcement or a court order to get it. So, I suppose you could try pursuing with your local authorities, and if they find that there's legitimate reason to act on it, they probably can.
But my bottom line belief is that it's simply not practically available to us.
Your best action is simply to learn from this, and do what it takes to properly secure your account. Typically that means not sharing your password with anyone, and choosing difficult to guess passwords, and where appropriate, difficult to guess answers to your "secret question". In my opinion it also means not using free email accounts for anything sensitive or important.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Are free email services worth it?
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Ask Leo! - Getting all worked up over IP tracing
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Ask Leo! - Can I get someone's name and address from their IP address?
Article C2626 - April 19, 2006
someone hacked into my msn and could see who i have on my msn messenger and my pictures who i am sending what through msn contacts , what do i do and how can i tell if someone hacked in to my computer.
Posted by: daniel at July 28, 2008 8:19 AMHey guys
Just to let you know this does happen, I have just found out that the account i was using had been used to talk to my friends online about personal stuff, access my e-mails, take perersonal information about my family etc etc. and then hold conversations with people using all the info that I had in my mails.
it does happen, so make your self secure.
Posted by: Craig at September 27, 2008 2:15 PMCraig
Hello my hotmail account was hacked into by my ex. He changed my password & my secret questions. Lucky for me he is not very smart & has sent txt messages 2 my phone admitting it was him. So what do i do now is it worth going 2 the police about or will nothing come of it?
09-Oct-2008
Hello... My MSN ID got hacked and Amazingly I got it back not once , not twice but 3 times. all u have to do is e-mail Microsoft staff they will contact u within 24 hours and ask u about the information u provided while making that e-mail address which got hacked and after matching those figures they give u the password change link through ur coresponding e-mail address..
Posted by: Jahanzaib Munir at November 12, 2008 2:55 AMjahanzaib please can you gv me the email address used to regain your msn address, my addy has been hacked and i would like it back please, thanks
Posted by: nasir khan at November 21, 2008 3:49 AMI think this article can help to find location.
http://wisdomtalks.com/2008/11/23/find-location-of-email-sender-using-gmailyahoohotmail/
04-Dec-2008
Hi i would just like to say if you have another msn you could wait until they come online and then maybe try and trick them to telly ou who they are ?? its worht a try :) suffering the same problem from me :)
Posted by: Emma at April 15, 2009 9:34 AMhi, i think one of my friends is hacking into my add. I have kept my password secure etc bt somehow he seems to knw the password (or hints that he does) whenever i change it. Im just wondering is that possible? thanks
Posted by: Sara Adam at June 6, 2009 1:42 PMMy account has been hacked twicw on MSN , this site is not longer secure , use google
Posted by: luv2181 at June 20, 2009 9:31 PMAlthough Hotmail does not allow IP tracking, GMail does. At the bottom of the screen on a GMail account, the last 5 IP addresses from which the account was signed into, are listed.
Posted by: Bly at October 28, 2009 8:41 AM