hotmail hacked

[Tiff]

Turns out something gained access to my hotmail this morning and sent an email to everyone on my contacts list. I only realised because one of the contacts is not real and i got a delivery status failure email back at me from hotmail.

The email is clearly spam or a virus so you should know not to open it.

Any ideas how this happened? I have changed my password for now, is that enough? should I change the password to all my accounts etc.

[thetrailbuilder]

msn virus is back, few people have been sending me spam unaware, havnt got anything from you tiff

[pa-system]

Turns out something gained access to my hotmail this morning and sent an email to everyone on my contacts list. I only realised because one of the contacts is not real and i got a delivery status failure email back at me from hotmail.

The email is clearly spam or a virus so you should know not to open it.

Any ideas how this happened? I have changed my password for now, is that enough? should I change the password to all my accounts etc.

Don't know how it happens, but a friend of mine had this happen to her last summer. As she used the same password for everything (play, amazon etc), or because she had password reminders saved in her hotmail, the same punter spent a couple of grand on orders from various websites. So, change your hotmail password and everything else that could possibly be linked. If anything could be linked, check order histories too.

[staralfur]

Think its known as an alphabet hack, thats how they get your password. Mine had letters and numbers but they still got me, get a capital letter or 2 in the new password.

[trailfox]

If you want a really solid password you should have upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols (^&~!£% etc.) and if you can remember- use a random arrangement of the above and not actual words. My bank one is pretty solid but ill need to change my paypal :o
Thats in windoze aswell but in saying that its stupidly easy to bypass windows logon and get admin access if you have a PS2 keyboard.

[barry_kellett99]

My bank one is pretty solid but ill need to change my paypal :o



Don't worry
I just changed it for you. ;)

[Zig]

Think its known as an alphabet hack, thats how they get your password. Mine had letters and numbers but they still got me, get a capital letter or 2 in the new password.

Then they will just use an ascii alphabet cracker, same as the alphabet just can take longer. The problem is really at the server end they need to have software that recognises an attack or even just locks you out after say 5 attempts



Thats in windoze aswell but in saying that its stupidly easy to bypass windows logon and get admin access if you have a PS2 keyboard.

And access to the windows based computer in question. Hotmail etc are not hosted on windows based computers though....


Don't worry
I just changed it for you. ;)

I changed it back so he wouldnt notice the difference.....:rolleyes:

[trailfox]

thanks zig :-)