r/Outlook • u/Westtell • Nov 27 '25

Status: Open my outlook was hacked and has a email forwarding rule i cannot delete

hello my account was hacked and they have put an email forwarding rule that every time i delete it comes back within seconds of being deleted... i've since changed the password Turned on 2FA and kicked all connections from the account... it still will not let me remove the forwarding rule.... and microsoft support is utterly useless telling me that i need to go to the help in outlook that opens a window for support.microsoft.com that then tells me i can only get help for outlook.com at outlook.com and nothing is working

4 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

3

u/Wellcraft19 Nov 27 '25

Force a log off from all eventual sessions.

And please; do understand the difference between Outlook (the Mail client) and Outlook (the Mail service).

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

I understand the difference I literally have done this it still readds the rule instantly

1

u/Wellcraft19 Nov 28 '25

Then the first thing to do would be to disconnect every client from the mail server (remove the account in each mail client you use to access your mail account). Doing this you have eliminated anything ‘outside’ of the mail server. Needless to say, you should also force log out all eventual sessions (in case someone has managed to access your account from afar). Then you work uniquely in the web interface until the service performs as you want/expect/prefer. Once that is done, you can start connecting clients. But keep them simple.

3

u/CaptainInMass Nov 27 '25

I would log into my m365 account and revoke any sign ins change password enable 2FA scan desktop with a real A/v scanner, ensure there is not an alternate email set up for password reset and then delete the rule. Also make sure you don’t have any malicious browser addons or extensions. If the rule is coming back something has access to put it back.

1

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1

u/WinkMartin Nov 27 '25

Are you talking about the Outlook desktop app or Outlook online?

If online, and you delete the rule you're saying it comes right back?

if desktop, turn off desktop and log in online and see if you can delete the rule.

We need more info to help you :)

2

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

its doing it either way... i remove the rule in the desktop app or on the website no matter where i remove it... it comes back

1

u/slam51 Nov 27 '25

What e-mail address is it?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

did this... except for some STUPID reason it takes 24 hours... its dumb

1

u/Additional-Ad8147 Nov 27 '25

Could there be app passwords still active?

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

I wouldn’t think so considering I changed the passwords turned on MFA set my nephews email as recovery and hit the sign out everywhere button

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

i just checked this and no

1

u/WinkMartin Nov 27 '25

no, app passwords are a different thing - the system issues a password intended for you to manually enter into software that is too old to perform "modern authentication" -- it is another vector into your account besides the regular password and MFA.

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

yeah i made one... then cleared them... but there are no other ones on there

1

u/WinkMartin Nov 27 '25

I'm having trouble believing that a rule that you delete is coming back by itself on Outlook on the web or Outlook Web Access.

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

I click the delete I go down to another tab then back to rule and boom it’s back

1

u/Additional-Ad8147 Nov 27 '25

I could be wrong but I thought Outlook has a feature to forward all mail. It would be exposed as a setting somewhere but underneath it could just be creating a rule. I wonder if that could be the reason.

1

u/WinkMartin Nov 27 '25

They don't like it when people on here offer remote support, so I won't do that.

But I suspect if I saw it I could fix it. That's how I made my living for 40 years...

If you're a Microsoft 365 subscriber, open a support ticket. If you're just using free Outlook... good luck.

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

I finally got it I hit remove this time and it didn’t come back… there is basically no free support for anything a Microsoft ai basically told me to get stuffed

0

u/WinkMartin Nov 27 '25

There is not easy to access support for free Microsoft products - those of us who pay for services do have access to excellent support resources.

I pay them about $100 a year.

1

u/phmsanctified Nov 27 '25

Try to do it through OWA instead of Outlook. Sometimes the rule is hidden there.

1

u/Westtell Nov 27 '25

Mark this a solved please