Crud!  I was getting spams from other people like this, so all of a sudden, my Hotmail account is doing it! 

I have already changed all my passwords, and actually deleted that contact list in hotmail.  Hopefully that will solve it, but if not, has anybody had this happen to them and did you have a fix?

Norton is always running and working, hasnt detected anything at all.  Almost seems someone has hacked my hotmail account?  either hacked hotmail or brute force password hack?  Or a password sniffer installed?  but Norton AV didn’t pick it up? The email header pointed to Budapest, Hungary! (89.133.27.204) (http://whatismyipaddress.com)

I never have these type of pc problems… and this one has me baffled how it happened.

Thank you for any help here!

Intel i7 930 2.8Ghz 8 CORE HT / CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus (no OC yet!)
Nvidia EVGA GTX 260 v296.10 driver (Nitrous in max) / Dual Dell Professional P2311H 23” Displays
ASUS P6X58D-E / Corsair Dominator 12GB 1600 DDR3 / Antec tp750 blue / Antec 300 Illusion
Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1
3ds max design 2012 x64 SP2 (since the 1st DOS version!), Mudbox 2012 x64 SP3, Softimage 2012 x64 SP1, Maya 2012 x64 HF2, Adobe CS5.5 x64, CorelDRAW x5 SP3, Painter 12, etc etc
Wacom Intuos4 v6.2.0w5 / 3DConnexion Space Navigator (drv6.15.2)/ Logitech Performance MX mouse (5.33.14)

3 possibilities.

Your system has a virus which has “phoned home” with all email addresses it can find on your system. The obvious answer in this case is to run several virus/work/malware detectors and see what shows up. Be warned that there are some real dodgy apps out there which say they found something then demand $$$ for the “full version” to clean your system. Stick to the well known ones.

Your email address is being “spoofed” in the spam emails. There is not a lot you can do about that. Once your email address “leaks” out or gets “harvested” from any source then they just keep using it. You get the hassle, they get the $$$ from the idiots who click links in emails…

Your Hotmail a/c (or indeed the whole of hotmail) has been hacked in which case there’s not a lot you can do except change to a proper email provider (hotmail has always been a problem) or get your own hosting on your own domain and control your email yourself. I did this a couple of years ago when my ISP outsourced their email to a google (cough, spit) based system. I’ve set up well over a 100 email address on the main domain and on several sub-domains - every contact (and I mean EVERY SINGLE contact) gets a unique email address. Not a single spam in 2 years. I get a spam - I delete the email address. Simples ;)

Note. You’re not alone btw - try googling “hotmail spam”.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.