Compromised account still sending mass spam despite password change, 2FA, and signing out everywhere — possible persistent OAuth token

Michael Kun 0 Reputation points
2026-08-25T20:08:05.07+00:00

Hi,

My Outlook/Hotmail account was compromised and is still sending mass spam/financial scam emails (Bitcoin, bank transfers, remittance themes) despite completing the full standard recovery process:

  • Changed the password (multiple times)
  • Enabled two-step verification (2FA)
  • Used 'Sign out everywhere'
  • Checked 'App access' — found no suspicious apps
  • Checked and cleared App Passwords (none were active)
  • Deleted suspicious inbox rules
  • Confirmed forwarding, POP, and IMAP are all disabled
  • Confirmed my security contact info (alternate email/phone) is genuinely mine

Despite all of this, my account keeps sending spam in such high volume that I hit Outlook.com's daily sending limit today ('Your message wasn't sent because there's a daily limit for how many messages can be sent'). My inbox is flooding with bounce-back messages (from ******@outlook.com, 'Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups') for financial scam emails I never sent.

I checked the 'Message source' of one of the sent emails and found:

X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthAs: Anonymous

X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthSource: BL02EPF00029929.namprd02.prod.outlook.com

This suggests the sending is not going through an interactive login, but through some kind of persistent application/API-level access that doesn't show up on the normal 'App access' page and isn't revoked by the standard recovery steps.

I also noticed my account language was changed to Vietnamese without my authorization.

Can someone from Microsoft (verified staff) help escalate this to a manual security review? I've exhausted the self-service options, and the automated support chat/assistant hasn't resolved the issue.

Thank you in advance.

Microsoft Security | Microsoft Defender | Other
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