On Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:33:21 -0400, Harty wrote:
> Someone hacked my email and it has now sent out emails to everyone in my
> contact list.

Was it just an email hack, or did malware on your system snarf your id/pw.
You will need to get rid of the malware before doing anything else if
you plan to keep using Micro$oft.

> 1) How can I fix this?

Make sure you have the latest Thunderbird installed.
Change your email password, assuming you have no malware on your system.


> 2) How can I prevent it from happening again?

Latest statistics I saw was over 7,000 new malware programs created daily.
That would indicate you have very little chance of preventing it from
happening again with your Micro$oft OS.

Two options,
1. install VirtualBox then a Linux distribution as a guest
and for any Internet work requiring a password, boot the Linux guest
and work from there.

2. Install a Linux OS as a second OS and just boot into Linux.

Only time I have to run Micro$not is when I want to use Turbo Tax from cd.


http://virtualbox.org

I can recommend the Mandriva One iso for your Live cd.
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/...cdrom-i586.iso

If you chose Mandriva, you will find a pretty nice bunch of people in
the Usenet group alt.os.linux.mandriva