windows messenger hacked?

Not sure where I should post this but my son has just been told that somebody had been sending messages to his 11 yo cousin through his msn today, but even though he still had his signed in, we had not been home all day? I dont know exactly what was sent but apparently the messages freaked her out so it didnt sound good. Could someone have hacked into his messenger or our computer? The computer is only a week old and is running vista, with the latest anti malware/ spyware from mcafee installed. Thanks.

Hi, As far as I know there are two possible things that happened here: The first one is that his account got hacked. MSN is designed so that you can log in to any account from any computer on the internet, so that people who travel can just log in to their account in for instance an internet bar. This means that somebody could have used your son's account on any computer, by using his e-mailaddress and password. This is what, like you said, they call hacking. One thing to check is if your son can still log in on his account. Most of the times when somebody hacks an account they will change the password so that the actual owner cannot control it anymore. Also ask your son if he thought of a good password. Weak passwords with for instance only non-capital letters are easier hacked than strong passwords with both capital and non-capital letters and even numbers. Another thing to make sure is that your son never tells his password and when he goes to a friend he must make sure that he does not set MSN Messenger to remember his password. The second possibility is that your computer is infected with malware. Some types of malware try to infect others by posting malicious messages (most of the times with files attached or links to the internet) and try to lead them into accepting/clicking it. It can even do this while you have MSN Messenger closed. Of course this possibility is much smaller, because your PC is good secured and if your computer is turned off the malware cannot send messages. Please let us know if you understand and if you have more questions. Regards, John.

Thankyou John for your help. He can still logg onto his messenger and he does have a weak password, but what I dont understand is how somebody could logg on on another computer if he is already signed in on ours? He was signed on when we left and still signed in when we got back, yet the messages were sent sometime inbetween? The messages his cousin was sending back at the time she was recieving the unknown messages were on our computer, they said "is that you?" and "stop saying that, you are freaking me out" and then "im gunna go get my mum if you dont go away" but she wouldnt tell anybody what was being sent to her? It has me worried now about my kids using the computer because that soooo weird.

Hi,

but what I dont understand is how somebody could logg on on another computer if he is already signed in on ours? He was signed on when we left and still signed in when we got back, yet the messages were sent sometime inbetween?

If somebody would sign in on his account somewhere else, your son would be disconnected automatically. This means that the messages must have been sent from your computer. I suspect malware to be the cause of all this.

To check for malware you will need to download Hijack This and post in the HijackThis™ Logs and Infections Removal Forum.

Please read all the instructions carefully before you post:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/Welcome_New_…ers_t34502.html

Please let us know if you decide to wait a little longer for more advice or work on the malware thing.

Regards,
John.

Do a quick 'look see' first to see if the chat history was saved - (It would have had to have been enabled first in order to save it.) If the history was saved then you can see what messages were sent from your computer. Look here: C:/ my documents my received files folder with your account's name history For future reference: –» you have to enable the option 'save history' open MSN tools options messages enable 'save history' apply/ok –» then it will be stored here C:/ my documents my received files folder with your account's name history –» when running PLUS open MSN PLUS preferences conversations enable the option 'save history' apply/ok –» it will be saved here C:/ my documents my chat logs if the 'save history' was not enabled originally then the history wasn't saved, but you may wish to do that for future reference. CB