Suspected email virus

[fifemidwife]

Hi,

Wondering if someone can help me? I received an email from someone I knew. Inside the body of the email was a link. Since I knew the person, I clicked on the link. Since that time, I cannot use my Hotmail account, but only on the computer I opened the link on. When I click on an email to open it, the whole computer freezes up. This does not happen if I check my email from another computer. My virus protection (CA) was running at the time I clicked the link. I have a PC, use Windows and IE and Hotmail. Later I got an email from the person saying her email had been hacked into. I have tried system restore to go back to time before I opened the email and that does not work. When I run a virus scan, nothing is picked up by the antivirus program. Any ideas for me?
Thanks in advance for any help. I don't really want to change email accounts if I don't have to.

Rose

[Kerry56]

Try running a different virus scan or malware detection program first. There is a free version of Malwarebytes here: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

And there are online scanners like the one from Trend Micro: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Have you tried a different browser to access Hotmail? If not, get Firefox or Chrome and see if the same problems occur in them. Which version of IE have you been using? Is it fully updated? IE8 is available as a separate download if you haven’t got it yet.

[mciahel]

Additionally, the password must be changed as soon as possible - from a clean system.

Michael

[Kerry56]

If you are already using IE8, try these two steps also. Go to Tools–>Internet options–>Clear Browsing history.

Then Tools–>Internet options–>Advanced–>Reset button