scanning for host file

G'day, have a windows 7 home premium 64 bit laptop, I've had problems over the last couple weeks with someone using my Hotmail to send spam, I have changed passwords nearly everyday still without any luck of stopping it. I've spoken to a few people who say my computer is likely being used as a host.

I use Avast , MBAM, and have also used housecall from trend micro, Avast free found nothing MBAM and housecall found a couple threats which I selected the FIX option, changed my Hotmail password again and still no luck.

Is there something out there that will scan for a rouge host file or what ever it is that's causing someone to be able to retrieve my Hotmail password as its changed?.

Please Note, I'm not looking for help on getting rid of what it is causing my problem just a program to scan for the rouge host.

cheers

Hello shucky,

It's possible there is an infection on your machine but very unlikely.

The spam being ostensibly generated from your Hotmail account may not have originated from you.

It's much more likely that your e-mail address is on a spammers list and unfortunately there is not much you can do about it.

What happens is that your hotmail address has been picked up in a malicious infection, either on someone elses machine or from a third party that has your e-mail address listed in their records.

These lists are compiled by one set of baddies and on sold to another set of baddies, the spammers, who use them both to target those on the list with spam and, (it seems in your case) to mask the actual source of the spam. In other words they pretend the spam is coming from you.

You can inform Hotmail and change your hotmail account but that won't necessarily stop the spammers. Experience tells us that they will likely continue to use your e-mail address name until they don't get sufficient return from their spamming. After that, they may sell the list on to another spammer and the whole thing may go through another cycle.

There is no one program that I know of that you can use to scan for the rogue host. Even some of the best counter malware companies/government agencies have difficulty in tracking down the source of these people.

Having said that, we still should check your machine to make sure it is clean.

If you don't want to do that then please tell me. Otherwise just follow the instruction below:

Please download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool from here and save it to your desktop.

Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. If you are not sure which version applies to your system download both of them and try to run them. Only one of them will run on your system, that will be the right version.
 

• Right click to run as administrator. When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
• Press Scan button.
• It will produce a log called (FRST.txt) in the same directory the tool is run from.
• Please copy and paste log back here.
• The first time the tool is run, it makes also another log (Addition.txt). Please also paste that into your reply.