Went through resecuring my account (live) and still having e-mail drafts appearing containing messages, cant open any new messages as they are replaced with malicious scam email.

Question

I have a corrupted draft in my Outlook mailbox that is causing all messages to render incorrectly. The draft is titled 'my last name, first name- "compromised credentials" and it is appearing and disappearing rapidly in the Drafts folder. I cannot delete it through the Outlook interface because it is too corrupted to interact with. This corrupted draft is causing other messages in my Inbox to display with incorrect body content. I need this draft deleted server-side.

I cannot currently reach back out to the support person or the support case or view my closed support case to add any comments!!!

I have went through all methods of resecuring my account myself as well as with the Microsoft support persons earlier and was supposed to get a call this morning and have not!
This is urgent as all of my e-mails are currently being as mentioned above repopulated with these scam e-mails from some draft I cannot interact with.

This of course is happening on local / desktop new and classic outlook
mobile outlook
and web outlook...

Answer 1

Hello

I have dealt with this issue helping others and this list of action items typically resolve it, but it can take up to 24 hours due to some of these steps take time.

Please feel free to skip those you already did. This process can take a bit time, so please be patient as you go through it.

Please complete these steps on a computer, not on a smartphone or tablet. I also bolded a few areas that most users missed.

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First, go to https://www.outlook.com and sign in.

Click the gear icon in the top right corner to open Settings.

Under Mail, review the following areas:

Rules

If any rules are listed, delete all of them.

Conditional formatting

If anything is set up there, delete it.

Forwarding and IMAP

If you see any entries or settings you did not create, remove them. Turn off POP and IMAP.

Junk

Review Safe sender and blocked list. If you don't recognize any, remove them.

After that, exit Settings and return to outlook.com.

Open the To Do section by clicking the blue checkmark icon on the left side. Delete anything there that was not created by you.

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Go to https://account.live.com.

Under Your info > Sign-in preferences, review all aliases on the account. If you see any alias you do not recognize, remove it.

Next, go to the Devices section of your Microsoft account and remove any devices you do not recognize.

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Please also do the following in Security section

Change your password

Enable two-step verification

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Go here https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/app-access Click on "Don't allow" for anything you don't recognize.

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Then go to Security > Manage how I sign in and make sure all contact information belongs to you.

On that same page, scroll down to App passwords and remove any existing app passwords.

Also on the same page, click on Sign out everywhere. This is intended to disconnect any active sessions that may still be connected. Please note that this can take up to 24 hours to fully take effect.

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In addition, this problem can sometimes be caused by a malicious script or infection on one of your devices.

Are you using a Windows computer to check email? Do you use an email app such as Outlook Classic or New Outlook?

If so, please open the app and remove the account from the app settings.

Then go to the Microsoft Safety Scanner download page:

https://learn.microsoft.com/defender-endpoint/safety-scanner-download

Download the 64-bit version, run a full scan, and let me know what the final results say.