Warning Hacker attack on Hotmail, Yahoo and Google Mail.
Hey All. I thought I'd warn you with news from Sky about the hotmail hacker attack. A hacker managed to hack into 10,000+ Hotmail accounts and posted them online with passwords etc the BBC could read it and reported it. That was some news from last week and this week and now today Sky News report the hacker may have hacked into Google and Yahoo so guys and gals change your passwords to keep your information safe. Is it me or Microsoft always get hacked.lol. Macs are less prone to virus/hack attacks.
Thousands of account passwords were put online
Microsoft confirmed on Monday that the popular email site had been the target of a scam which tricked users into revealing their passwords.
This led to around 10,000 passwords being posted online.
The computer company said their servers were not responsible for the security breach and that individuals had been conned into handing over their details.
But it has been reported that more lists have also been circulated with genuine account information relating to email on Google, Yahoo, Comcast and Earthlink, as well as other third-party web mail services.
Neil O'Neil, an ethical hacker and digital forensics investigator at secure payments specialist The Logic Group, said up to a million passwords could have been accessed.
"Making the breach public so soon after the attack occurred has allowed unethical hackers to access the passwords very easily, even though they were deleted a couple of days ago at the request of Microsoft," he explained.
"People tend to have the same password across many accounts - so there is a good chance that individuals have also compromised the integrity of their ebay or paypal accounts too.
"The list went through A and B, so you would think whoever released these has more. And if you do the maths, they could have more than a million passwords."
Hackers and cybercriminals attempt to trick people into handing over personal details, including email addresses and passwords.
Internet users may be directed to false websites, set up to mirror legitimate websites, that feed information back to the criminals.
News of the scam broke when technology blog neowin.net reported an anonymous user had published confidential details on pastebin.com.
More passwords may be posted online
Internet users are urged to change their passwords regularly and ensure anti-virus software is up to date to protect themselves from fraudsters.
A Microsoft spokesman said: "We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were acquired illegally by a phishing scheme and exposed on a website."
They added that they requested the details be removed from the internet and they launched an immediate investigation.
The company are also taking measures to block the accounts which were hit.
A spokesman for Google said they were aware that some gmail accounts had been part of the phishing scam and said - while their servers were not responsible - they had taken steps to ensure security.
And a spokesman for Yahoo said they take great effort to protect their users' security and that they urge consumers to take measures to secure their accounts whenever possible, including changing their passwords.
So guys and girls change your passwords when possible and stay safe.
Judging by the fact that this is some kind of phishing scam. Make sure you do not reply to any dubious e-mails, or hand out bank details.
Or, just do what I do. Have a address so obscure, that no-one will ever send you anything :P
I haven't input any logins beyond on the real hotmail and gmail sites.
And phishing mostly happens through email links and re-entering your stuff, which I don't do.
Did change my hotmail just in case though.
It's a good thing my password is unhackable :)
Lol don't jinx your account. Never say never
I don't even know my passwords. If I lost my password DB I would lost them all, although I have it backed in four USB memories, so that is very unlikely.
Actually no password is unhackable. The question is if somebody wants to use enough resources on finding it. If you honestly make that statement together with your email address then you could end up being the target for the next hacker competition and then 50 people will start to send emails in your name :P
Yeah I heard about this =\...luckily I don't think mines been hacked :D
Yea same here, but I just changed it then just in case haha.
I'm quite sure I'm not affected by this. First of all this seems to spread though systems, which will attack user stupidity and well that will just not work on me. I read elsewhere that it's something, which likely spreads though facebook. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I'm not using either facebook or twitter. Last, but not least, I use mac ^^
Oh and even if I got targeted I rarely use my hotmail address and it has a unique password compared to all my other unique passwords. We are talking about keeping track of like 20 passwords, which goes surprisingly well. I rarely has to even look at this list ^^
Look, this news is a complete BS splattered into my face! I can't believe hackers are still rampant! running around enjoying every minute of stealing others info which results into stealing other people's privacy and hardships! And now this "ethical" hacker came into play. Look there is no "ethics" in sin! Why did they even created this method called "hacking" anyway?! perhaps a way to make money? my friend told me that the founders of windows like bill gates are the founders of hacking. Maybe there is conspiracy in this. Someone's gotta do about this, yeah?
on the first part, I hope you won't take it the other way around....a just despise people like that...please excuse me.
I've been hacked before, they just hack mine when I'm online on MSN messenger. :(
this is pure BS. what has a phishing scam got to do with Microsoft or Apple comps in beyond reason.
And macs are not less prone to virus hacks attacks. Infact when hackers feel like targeting mac users, you apple fans wont have anything to secure your system with.
While it's true that OSX is using a more secure core, it's also right that no OS can protect against user stupidity. I think the first spyware/malware for OSX were distributed though websites with 3D women doing... you can imagine. Well it should claim that you miss a quicktime plugin and you were given the option to download it from some site in a strange part of the world. It would then try to install yourself and you would need to type your root password in order to do so. If users are stupid enough to do something like that then no OS can protect you ^^;
The OSX security (compared to windows) works on the level where the user will not see it coming at all. It's a myth that any OS is 100% secure though (sadly).
Oh and for antivirus for mac... no problem. Even though they have far less to scan for than on Windows you can get some decent ones. Norton noticed that mac users didn't buy their antivirus and added the ability to scan for window viruses too in order to increase the count of known threats ^_^
It's not a bad idea though. Scanning something you will use on windows for virus designed for windows... well there is always a risk that it will go wrong even before you scan. If the OS can't read the virus then security is somewhat higher during the scan.
Wow...someone is targeting the big shots...guess i must take precautions as well...