Email password breaking is on the rise as a way to send out spam. This is especially true with Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts, but can, and likely will, happen more broadly. It is true, and has been known, that spammers can fake the “From” address of a message and that this can cause spam to just look like it came from your address, but the more recent trend has been for hackers to break into your Webmail account and send the spam right from your email.

This trend is especially useful because they often don’t get caught in spam traps since the message authenticates normally from known good senders and servers. This method of sending spam is going to get more common over time because the attacker not only gets the opportunity to send spam but also can harvest fresh email addresses. Two things spammers find most valuable.