Your MSN problem is probably unrelated to the SL issue....More than likely it was a phishing email that reeled you in.
From Wiki pedia --- *phishing is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques. Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out using email or an instant message, although phone contact has been used as well[1]. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, and technical measures......Most methods of phishing use some form of technical deception designed to make a link in an email appear to belong to the spoofed organization. Misspelled URLs or the use of subdomains are common tricks used by phishers.*
Basically, a fraudster sends you an email message from another msn hacked email account (to get the @msn.com email part). The link http://www.hotmail.com actually has hidden code in it to take you to another webpage that looks exactly like the original hotmail webpage (if you mouseover it or right click you will see where it really goes to). Then you pop in your password, the hacker then immediately takes over your account, changes all your settings, and sends out more phishing emails. I get these every so often, I fell for one about 6 yrs ago luckily I was able to get a password reset sent out before he changed my email.... the biggest thing to remember is:
DO NOT CLICK A LINK THAT IS RANDOMLY SENT TO YOU ASKING TO RESET A PASSWORD OR ASKING TO PROVIDE 'VERIFICATION' OF ID (WHICH WILL REQUIRE A PASSWORD).
If you ever receive an email like that, DO NOT click the link, go to the website the normal way and check your info.
Take care!