Hotmail password alert after phishing attack....Time to change passwords

[cueperkins]

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/hotmail-password-alert-after-phishing-attack/story-e6freuy9-1225783243781

# Daily Mail
# Tue Oct 06 11:33:04 EST 2009 Tue Oct 06 11:33:04 EST 2009

MILLIONS of Aussie Hotmail users have been urged to change their passwords after a security breach led to thousands of logins being posted online.

About 10,000 passwords were obtained by hackers who created a fake website identical to Hotmail's to fool users into entering their email address and password. The scam is known as "phishing".

The list of users was then posted anonymously on the website pastebin.com - a website commonly used by developers to share code - on October 1, the Daily Mail reports.

The list included details of Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail accounts with email addresses ending hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com. Although most of the addresses were for European users they started with an A or B - prompting fears there could be additional lists.

Microsoft said it had launched an investigation.

"We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were acquired illegally and exposed on a website," a spokesperson said.

"Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers."

[tellomon]

Whinge Snipe!

[*CountessA*]

People WILL click onto links, won't they?

The fake website trick can really only be effective if people don't pay attention to the address bar, or click onto links in emails. *sigh*

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you tend to use the same password on various accounts or sites, ideally it's best for you to change your password on those other sites. It's particularly important if you use the same password for a hotmail account as you do for any account related to your financial information.

If your PayPal account or eBay account passwords are the same as your hotmail account password, please...! Change them! Hackers with your email password can automatically try the same password in other accounts of yours - it's all bot-generated, so don't think "they wouldn't bother trying". They don't need to. It's automatic. I know it's a pain trying to create strong passwords for various accounts, but for the sake of your account security, you should simply bite the bullet and do it.