Has your email account been hijacked?

In the past month there have been increasing reports of email accounts being hijacked, especially free email accounts such as hotmail. When an account is hijacked the email owner is often unaware until they start hearing from people that are getting spam from their address. In some cases victims have reported address books being deleted or sent items cleaned out. Hijacking doesn't necessarily mean you've lost access to your account.

What should you do if you are a victim of email hijacking? Most important change your password immediately and make it a complex one (a combo of upper and lower case letters, with numbers and/or symbols) is best. Change your security question and answer and make sure your alternate email address is correct and hasn't been changed on you.  Let everyone in your address book know what happened so they can be aware and question and suspicious emails that have come from your address up until that point.