Hotmail Announces Email Security Updates

Microsoft on Monday said that they started to improve the email service Hotmail with security updates to protect legit user accounts from being hijacked.
The term hijacker refers to malicious users who manage to get access to email accounts of Hotmail users, either by brute force, phishing or other forms of social engineering.
Like Microsoft, Hotmail users need to understand security concepts to keep their accounts safe. To support their users, Microsoft has created a short list of tips to protect the account. The list includes the following security tips:
- Create a strong password
- Use antivirus software
- Add security information to your account
- Don’t sign in on a computer you don’t trust
- Don't share your password
- Check the address that appears in the address bar when you sign in
Microsoft has identified a shift in the strategy of hijackers, who in the past used newly created accounts for spamming purposes. Better recognition cut down on the effectiveness of those methods, which is why hijackers have started to target legit email accounts as well.
With today’s release, we are taking a step forward by detecting compromised email accounts, those co-owned by the legitimate user and the hijacker. We detect them with high confidence using heuristics based on login and account activity, and stop the abuse by locking the hijacker out and closing back doors they may have set up, like using vacation auto reply messages to send spam. At the same time, we begin working with the rightful owner to reclaim the account, recognizing the urgency of the issue.
Hotmail is now able to detect accounts that have been hijacked, and makes use of automatic routines to lock the hijacker out of the account, and work with the account owner to restore the account. Up until now, account owners were able to use an alternative email address that they setup or the answer to a security question to restore an account. From today on, two additional proofs are available for account recovery:
“Trusted PC†is a unique new proof that lets you link your Hotmail account with one or more of your personal computers. Then, if you ever need to regain control of your account by resetting your password, you simply need to be using your computer and we will know you are the legitimate owner.
The second new proof option is your cell phone number, where Hotmail will send a secret code via SMS that can be used to reset your password and reclaim your account.

Both new proofs can be configured in the Account overview window. To avoid the changing of those proofs by hijackers, changes to them users now need to access one existing proof to do so. A hijacker therefor would need access to the security answer, secondary email account, mobile phone or trusted PC to change the proofs.
Email providers like Hotmail do good to improve the security of their services, considering that they really missed out on those improvements over the past years.

You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!