Couperman Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 Cathy has had her hotmail account hacked and everyone on her contact list has had a spam e-mail, thankfully for a chinese electronics site, rather than the more unsavoury ones. Luckily they didn't change the password so I have managed to retrieve it and secure it again hopefully. I am not sure if it was a virus, malware, spyware thing or someone breaking in by guessing the password (it wasn't an easy one, it was a serial number from one of my guitars! with letters numbers and other characters etc) Virus-scan running now. I was just wondering has anyone else had this problem? Kev. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gem_Seb Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 My OH mum and her mate and my bro have had this happen to them. It seems like it happens alot........... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scramble Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 How awful I can't really remeber the theory behind it, but my Dad told me that if you put in a character like a '#' or a '~' into your password, it's much more difficult for it to be hacked as it can't just track through the normal letters and numbers. Or something like that, but I'm no expert! Hope everything's okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrensWorld Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 The longer the password and the more characters, is the rule. Remember to change it every now and again, and never use the same password for your Internet Banking, EVER! Just found this, it's a bit scary.. http://evolt.org/node/395 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couperman Posted August 11, 2009 Author Share Posted August 11, 2009 The longer the password and the more characters, is the rule. Remember to change it every now and again, and never use the same password for your Internet Banking, EVER! Just found this, it's a bit scary.. http://evolt.org/node/395 I wouldn't worry too much about that it's a ten year old story, I am sure they will have patched it by now. I only use hotmail for registering on sites that may fire a lot of spam your way and for msn messenger. And I dont use Windows at all, thankfully. I think Cathy may follow suit shortly I have been getting a lot of messenger type spam lately as well so I don't think it is as secure as it could be. You are right about the password advice, remembering it is a different matter! I generally use a really long phrase and pick certain letters out of each word. The most secure thing I have is for my business banking with has a username password and a number generator keyfob synchronised with the server. It changes the code every 30 seconds. I think all banks should invest in that system. Kev. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoid Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 Hotmail = fail, use Gmail instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubereglu Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 I've not had this problem, but I know quite a few others who have. Well done for securing it though. We have quite a few anti-virus packages we use and generally don't open attachments unless we know what they are, plus we use Spyware and AVG. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couperwife Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 thats all im going to say on the matter cathy x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrensWorld Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 There's still a back door into Hotmail, just check out 'Hotmail back door'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busybird Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 A friend of my DDs had his hotmail account hacked. A very suggestive email with some unsavoury images was sent to all those on his friends list. Luckily the friend was at school when this happened so everyone knew that it could not have been him sending it. We found out because one of his friends did not have his own email account so used his Dad's who opened the email and warned the other parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chook n Boo Mum Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 I don't jinx myself now .......so far I haven't had any problems...get the odd junk message along the lines "get rich quick" "you are a long lost relative of....." etc which is dumped in the junk file by our "protective" software presumably & deleted either by me or by the system if it happens to stay around long enough for the auto delete to work. DS said he thought somebody had been into this hotmail account & opened messages which he hadn't read, so he changed his password, then forgot it, so now has another hotmail account Sha x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&T Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 This is quite popular, and I regularly receive this type of junk at the moment - and I've "sent it" when my account has been hacked too. Often open up Messenger, to be advised by a "friend" to try certain diet pills etc where their account has been hacked. If only the hacker could see the friend they might not think it was such a good advertisment!! The passwords are rarely changed by the hackers, and changing it yourself stops it happening - until they hack it again. So don't use existing words or names, and make as tricky to hack as possible - "Fred1" is a lot easier to hack then "ghj^&cb96mf". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
