Karl Masks vs Outlook and by extension the people who sold my mother her new PC

[Karl Masks]

It's mainly the OUtlook issue, although finding out my mother has been sold two years of McAfee antivrius shit is annoying since I told her not to bother. Gotta hit those sales targets.

Anywho. I've set up her new laptop, she is unfortunately utterly compuphobic. She has an outlook account which for some reason can only send but not receive. We think it maybe because it got hacked, although there's no way to know for certain, just some weird emails from her account. Nothing else appears untoward, but now she can only send emails. Nothing gets received. Anyone know why this is? I checked the settings and junk mail but couldn't find anything

 

[newme]

Any chance its an old account with photos etc uploaded and has hit the size limit? Mine was doing that and I am going to have to shift a lot of it to amazon it looks like. Have you tried the same account via PC, web and phone? Sometimes found I couldn't find anything in the desktop version for example but then it worked fine via phone.

Definitely change passwords, 2fa etc.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Just use a gmail account like everyone else.
McAfee isn’t shit.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Is it possible there are any rules set up in the web interface on her email?

Simple way of hiding emails if you've hacked someone and are trying to access other resources that email address might be the log in for.

eg. Forward all mail to another email address then delete it from the outlook account

 

[Karl Masks]

Any chance its an old account with photos etc uploaded and has hit the size limit? Mine was doing that and I am going to have to shift a lot of it to amazon it looks like. Have you tried the same account via PC, web and phone? Sometimes found I couldn't find anything in the desktop version for example but then it worked fine via phone.

Definitely change passwords, 2fa etc.

Do you mean a full inbox because hers is empty?

I haven't tried the same account elsewhere, except her new pc.

 

[Karl Masks]

Just use a gmail account like everyone else.
McAfee isn’t shit.

That's what I said to her but she's mega technophobic and explaining to her how to set up a different email is tough. Just how some people of a certain vintage are I'm afraid. I'll have to do it for her

 

[Karl Masks]

Is it possible there are any rules set up in the web interface on her email?

Simple way of hiding emails if you've hacked someone and are trying to access other resources that email address might be the log in for.

eg. Forward all mail to another email address then delete it from the outlook account

I checked the settings, but couldn't see anything. Where would I find these rules?

 

[newme]

Do you mean a full inbox because hers is empty?

I haven't tried the same account elsewhere, except her new pc.

Well more a full outlook account since its all linked now, if eg a phone with lots of pics/video automatically uploading it can be irrelevant how full the inbox is. Given your description of her usage of technology this seems very unlikely tho.

 

[Karl Masks]

Well more a full outlook account since its all linked now, if eg a phone with lots of pics/video automatically uploading it can be irrelevant how full the inbox is. Given your description of her usage of technology this seems very unlikely tho.

yeah she only has the email on pc, no phone or gadgets

 

[Throbbing Angel]

I checked the settings, but couldn't see anything. Where would I find these rules?

Dunno off the top of my head. Settings, certainly, but after that I'd be guessing.

I use rules like this in Gmail all the time to bounce email to one inbox, so there's no need to keep it in the original inbox, imho.
Although you could if you want to.

I'll have a look when I'm in front of a laptop later.

Microsoft might not have this facility in the web interface of course.

 

[newme]

May be easier to just start from scratch on a new account, presumably she can't rely on this specific one too much if its entirely broken?

 

[Throbbing Angel]

here we are Karl Masks
-log in through a laptop/similar browser
-click the cog in the top right of the screen
-type forwarding into the search box in settings
-see if forwarding is enabled and if it is, where is it pointing, if you don't tick 'keep a copy' all emails will be deleted from your inbox after being forwarded
-also check under Rules from that same setting page to see of any hackers have added rules to the inbox

 

[Karl Masks]

here we are Karl Masks
-log in through a laptop/similar browser
-click the cog in the top right of the screen
-type forwarding into the search box in settings
-see if forwarding is enabled and if it is, where is it pointing, if you don't tick 'keep a copy' all emails will be deleted from your inbox after being forwarded
-also check under Rules from that same setting page to see of any hackers have added rules to the inbox

View attachment 394739

Excellent stuff, thanks!

We have it sorted now I think. Somewhere somehow (possibly a hacker like I said) there was a rule that had been added redirecting email to some account starting "helken.1" or something. Mother Masks doesn't recognise it, but it's been turned off. I didn't delete it in case she did it intentionally although I doubt it. She ought to reedo her passwords I think

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Excellent stuff, thanks!

We have it sorted now I think. Somewhere somehow (possibly a hacker like I said) there was a rule that had been added redirecting email to some account starting "helken.1" or something. Mother Masks doesn't recognise it, but it's been turned off. I didn't delete it in case she did it intentionally although I doubt it. She ought to reedo her passwords I think

Deffo reset passwords for anything she values if its linked to that email address.

If her banking is linked to that email, tell them she's been hacked.

Bit Warden is a free password managers that can be used from a browser or phone app. I'd recommend she uses that to create strong passwords and then she only had to remember the BW password.

And switch on 2FA if she has a mobile she can use for that.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Can't stress what Throbbing Angel has suggested enough. This is really serious and she should treat everything as compromised.

 

[Karl Masks]

Deffo reset passwords for anything she values if its linked to that email address.

If her banking is linked to that email, tell them she's been hacked.

Bit Warden is a free password managers that can be used from a browser or phone app. I'd recommend she uses that to create strong passwords and then she only had to remember the BW password.

And switch on 2FA if she has a mobile she can use for that.

She has no phones or extra gadgets and I don't think (because i asked at the outset) her banking details are connected. Passwords will have to be changed, but i guess technophobia has its benefits. She doesn't have a multitude of accounts across a tone of gadgets all sharing passwords. Will have to be careful though

 

[pogofish]

Just use a gmail account like everyone else.
McAfee isn’t shit.

Maybe not shit - but it can be a highly annoying piece of software. From a very high system load to being incredibly nagging/message-heavy and very difficult to get rid-of from your system if you want to use something else..!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Maybe not shit - but it can be a highly annoying piece of software. From a very high system load to being incredibly nagging/message-heavy and very difficult to get rid-of from your system if you want to use something else..!

I just moved to it from Sophos which didn’t nag at all but started giving me false positives to the extent I thought two machines had viruses that it couldn’t get rid of (they didn't). So I’ll take the nagging I think after a completely needless reinstall.

 

[pogofish]

DP

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I just moved to it from Sophos which didn’t nag at all but started giving me false positives to the extent I thought two machines had viruses that it couldn’t get rid of (they didn't). So I’ll take the nagging I think after a completely needless reinstall.

I just use the built in Windows one and use half a brain.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I just use the built in Windows one and use half a brain.

I have been known to take silly risks.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I have been known to take silly risks.

May I suggest a VM?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

May I suggest a VM?

That sounds like a ballache. I don’t take that many risks.