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E-mail passwords compromised
Janson
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
About a week and a half ago I tried to log into my hotmail account and found that my password was invalid. I am 100% certain I was entering the password correctly. I managed to reset the account (using my secret question) and then I checked everything that used either my hotmail account or the same password.
Although I had a few accounts (ebay, paypal, etc.) tied to my hotmail account, none of those had been accessed. The only other account that I could not access (again, password was invalid) was one of the g-mail accounts that is tied to my hotmail (i.e. my hotmail is the secondary address).
Changed passwords, ran virus checkers on my home and work computer (both are behind routers, firewalls and have anti-virus running, nothing appeared), spyware, etc. Everything seemed clean. No harm had been done.
Anyway, the exact same problem happened again today. Hotmail and another of my gmail accounts (but this time a different one) had my passwords appear as invalid. Again, I am 100% certain I was entering the passwords correctly, and again, no harm seems to have been done. I managed to reset the passwords.
Has anyone else had this happen, or can anyone offer an explanation as to why this has happened? Both times my passwords were fairly secure, i.e. a mixture of letters and numbers, nothing specific to tie them to me or that anyone could easily guess. I've only accessed my mail accounts from home and from work, and every day I go home from work I'm sure to log out and clear cookies, etc.
Although I had a few accounts (ebay, paypal, etc.) tied to my hotmail account, none of those had been accessed. The only other account that I could not access (again, password was invalid) was one of the g-mail accounts that is tied to my hotmail (i.e. my hotmail is the secondary address).
Changed passwords, ran virus checkers on my home and work computer (both are behind routers, firewalls and have anti-virus running, nothing appeared), spyware, etc. Everything seemed clean. No harm had been done.
Anyway, the exact same problem happened again today. Hotmail and another of my gmail accounts (but this time a different one) had my passwords appear as invalid. Again, I am 100% certain I was entering the passwords correctly, and again, no harm seems to have been done. I managed to reset the passwords.
Has anyone else had this happen, or can anyone offer an explanation as to why this has happened? Both times my passwords were fairly secure, i.e. a mixture of letters and numbers, nothing specific to tie them to me or that anyone could easily guess. I've only accessed my mail accounts from home and from work, and every day I go home from work I'm sure to log out and clear cookies, etc.
Janson on
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I have no idea what else it could be, I advise you change your paypal/ebay/etc to a not-hotmail e-mail service, but then again, I wouldn't use hotmail for anything worthwhile.
I changed my paypal/ebay etc. to gmail instead of hotmail. I don't have any non-web based e-mail addresses.
First, change all your important passwords again from home.
Second, stop accessing these accounts from work until you figure this out.
Third, read this.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,114738-page,1/article.html
And this.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,114738-page,3/article.html
Fourth, notify your IT dept.
Hopefully you can track down the problem. Also, check your computer physically too. If it's normally under your desk or something, there could be a USB device attached and you may not now.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Someone could be TRYING to hack your accounts, and failing miserably.
I won't access hotmail again from work. I did have trillian set to log in automatically (trillian is passworded, but I realise that doesn't mean much) but I can just as easily just use AIM.
In fact that's how I discovered the problem the first time - loaded up trillian, wouldn't automatically connect to hotmail, so went to hotmail to see if I could manually log in.
I run spybot and adaware fairly often in addition to the virus scans. I might have a chat with my bosses to see about setting up extra security, though.
Both times this appears to have happened during the night when I've been asleep, incidentally.
If I were hacking someone's account, first thing I'd do is change the password, second thing is change the secondary email associated with that account so that it couldn't be reset. Obviously that's not happening here.
True, and I hope that this is actually the case, because it would mean that a) obviously my passwords are fairly secure and b) like you say, failure.