Hotmail adds 'My friend's been hacked!' feature to finger phishers

Hotmail's spent the past few years playing catch up with the competition, but for the most part, it hasn't done anything particularly groundbreaking with its services. Earth shattering might not be the appropriate descriptor for its latest addition, but Hotmail's added a helpful new feature to distinguish plain old spam from the kind that comes form a trusted source. Now, when you get an email from a friend that smells of something sea dwelling -- say a plea for some extra scratch from abroad -- you can select "My friend's been hacked!" from the "Mark as" menu, alerting the powers that be that your friend's account has been hacked. When you mark a missive as junk, you can likewise click a box that reads: "I think this person was hacked!" Once that's done, the spammers are kicked to the curb, and your friend is put through an "account recovery flow" the next time they attempt to log in. On the prevention front, Hotmail will soon roll out a new service that blocks users from selecting common passwords. It might not be enough to coax us over, but maybe this time the other guys could learn a few lessons.

Hotmail's Mysterious Disappearing E-Mails Returning to Users' Inboxes

Many Hotmail users across the world reported over the weekend that their e-mails had been mysteriously deleted. Over the past couple of days, Microsoft's official forums were filled with complaints from users claiming that their inboxes and all of their folders had been emptied, with some suspecting that their accounts had been hacked. Microsoft's Hotmail technical team has acknowledged that it's aware of the issue, and that it's working to restore access for those affected. A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, told the BBC that the problem was not widespread.