Hotmail,password,phishing,upda computer Hotmail password phishing update:
Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc ----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a
The credentials were not limited to Microsoft services; theyalso included Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, Comcast, and Earthlink.The breadth and scopeof this is intriguing as Microsoft and Google both have made statementsinsisting it is the result of phishing.I am not willing to say it is notphishing, or related to phishing; however, it could be a combination of attacksleading to this large quantity of compromised accounts.Many trojans and othermalware capture and upload any credentials cached by Internet Explorer andFirefox.I recently mentioned the chance this was related to a MSN Messengerfriends block verification scam that was popular at the end of August andbeginning of September.Earlier, SophosLabs reported on a similar scam targetingMicrosoft passwords.This alone implies that if it is only phishing, multipletactics were taken.Many users have expressed concern to me today regarding thedifficulty in changing their Microsoft credentials.When logging into yourHotmail or other Live! ID account it is not obvious how to change your password.Youwouldnt think Microsoft would make something so important so difficult, but theydo.Here is the easiest way I have found to change your Live!/Passport password.Goto http://login.live.comEnter your email address and password for the accountin questionSelect CredentialsChoose Change your passwordWhile entering thedetails I recommend checking the box Make my password expire every 72 daysYoumight ask, Why would these thieves post these passwords in a public forum?.Thisis not entirely clear, but the precedent would be credit card thieves.Theyoften steal hundreds, or thousands of cards and post a sample on undergroundmessage boards to demonstrate that they have real cards.Then they are able tosell the rest with the purchaser having been able to test the validity of theirclaim.If the 30,000 are a limited sample of what they have obtained, then thiscould be a demonstration to potential customers of the stolen logins.If this istrue the 30,000 users are the lucky ones.Microsoft, Google and the others canlock these accounts and prevent their further abuse.The remaining undisclosedaccounts are free for the taking if users dont hear the message to change theirpasswords and better protect their identities.What value do stolen emailaccounts have? Two primary scams come to mind.The hackers are able to penetratethe trust barrier.Your webmail account often contains a list of friends, familyand acquaintances who trust you.This enables the attacker to victimize thesecontacts by virtue of their relationship with you.Logging into your accounthackers are able to determine what other online services you use, and are ableto perform password resets.This widens the net of identities they can captureand potentially enables them to reset your passwords to bank accounts, onlinepayment systems, and other critical accounts.If it is not already clear, resetall of your passwords.Be more vigilant than ever about clicking links inemails, even links on search engines.Only provide your credentials to websitesthat provide the service for which the user ID belongs.
Hotmail,password,phishing,upda