How does Hotmail/Outlook.com get infected with spam so quickly?

[Berryracer]

I use Gmail as my main email but it has a nickname in it which is not professional.

so I chose a nice professional email on the new Outlook.com

I have not used this email for anything but for applying for jobs....I keep getting like 2 to 3 spam emails telling me I won a price of 750,000 USd from BlackBerry or from Nigeria or what not....


How do these spam emails work? do they like send a mass email to every @hotmail / @msn / @live.com / @outlook.com account or what?

and why are others like Gmx or Gmail so much better in this regards?

Microsoft ought to get its act straight with this bullshit

 

[Soundmanred]

Yes.

 

[WilliamM2]

I've had an outlook account for about a month now. Haven't got a single spam message yet. So I'm sure they don't just send spam to every account.

Maybe some of these prospective employers you've mailed have compromised email.

 

[goobee]

I converted my Hotmail to Outlook. My usual spam of course still comes but it goes mostly into the spam box. It seems to do a better job recognizing spam.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They use dictionary attacks. Basically common names/lastname in all combinations you can think of.

What's sad is the fact that while this is a huge plague that affects everyone, it's not illegal, yet downloading an MP3 is. I forget what the statistic is but something like 80% of bandwidth is email spam.

 

[Matt1970]

I've had an outlook account for about a month now. Haven't got a single spam message yet. So I'm sure they don't just send spam to every account.

Maybe some of these prospective employers you've mailed have compromised email.

Yep. How many of those employers did you never hear back from?

 

[Ketchup]

I noticed this as well. I am sure it's all about money, but I don't know anything more specific. I created a new Hotmail account less than a year ago, as the old one started sending crap to my contacts. I used the account for some Microsoft trials, that's it. I am already getting tons of junk in it. It's ridiculous.

Compared to my gmail account, which I have had for a few years, and has only 1 spam message in it, and that was from several weeks ago. I really need to email Frogengtacfiagnhagen and let him know my paychecks are depositing just fine.

 

[MrColin]

Most job postings are fake dragnets for harvesting email addresses.

 

[pauldun170]

I have 3 accounts across Outlook.com and live.com.
Naming conventions aren't anything complex and are common to my gmail, isp and other accounts.

I get nothing in the outlook and live accounts.

My isp accounts get crap from companies I supplied my email address too but the biggest hitter for spam is from a gmail account.
Not that much compared to other folks but I do get the occasional spam.

 

[smakme7757]

Nothing here either in my 2 month old outlook.com inbox. I've actually been really happy with it (apart from no imap support).

Keep in mind though that signing up for various agencies might allow them to give your email to "partners". Microsoft wont be giving your email away so you have obviously let it slip somewhere where you shouldn't have. As mentioned above, something as innocent as a recruiting agency can leak your email.

*Mobile post*

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Yes, there's a pretty good chance that the Outlook service filters work better...
To be honest, I think Yahoo has even worse e-mail security...