Hotmail Gets an Update with ‘My Friend’s Been Hacked!’

In the past few months, the spate of hackings has increased to immeasurable amounts from big name corporations to not so big websites. But one thing that is continually getting hacked is a person’s email account regardless the time frame. Popular email client Hotmail has issued a prevention measure by introducing a feature called ‘My Friend’s Been Hacked!’ to their service.

Easy to find in the 'Mark As' tab

According to a blog post on the Windows Team Blog, Hotmail now allows you to report if your friend’s account has been compromised. All one has to do is go to the ‘Mark As’ menu and click ‘My friend’s been hacked!’ In addition to this one can also report an account as compromised when you mark a message as junk or otherwise move a message to the Junk folder. Two things happen when one labels the account as hacked which is the account can no longer be used by the hacker and when your friend attempts to access their account; they’re put through an account recovery flow that helps them take back control of the account.

It works through the Junk folder as well

The blog post states that this feature was released a few weeks ago and was only limited to a Hotmail account but due to its success, they have now made it work for any email account. They end by stating, "When it comes to account security, the Hotmail team is dedicated to doing all we can to help protect your Hotmail account from thieves and spammers. We’ll continue to work to protect your account with new and innovative features, and now you can join us in the fight and help protect your own account and your friends’ accounts, too.”

This is a very useful feature which Hotmail has incorporated into their email service and will definitely help in the prevention of spammers or hackers that continue to plague our email accounts on a daily basis.