Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:51 pm Post subject: Hotmail security breach
The massive security breach that led to millions of Hotmail customers being advised to change their passwords has now spread to users of email services including Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.
Up to 21million people and businesses who use the Hotmail service in the UK were warned they are potentially at risk of being defrauded after passwords were acquired illegally.
* Keep your email addresses ( and boxes ) to your ISP.
A lot of people think that because they are given a.smith@myISP.com that is the only email address they can have.
However, you can achieve a bit of anonymity by setting up additional e-mail addresses as all ISPs allow.
I'm also cllr.rocke@sky.com - I could just as easily be an.onymous@sky.com. Someone could have boyo249@aol.com or valleyslass342@talktalk.net - it's just as anonymous as boyo249valleyslass342@hotmail.co.uk.
The main point is that by utilising your ISP's facilities to create additional addresses you'll only access them via the ISP's Home Page, which isn't going to be phished. ( The scam sirloinsteak's highlighted basically revolves around people mistyping the website they're trying to get eg. www.hotmai.co.uk. or www.gogle.com. Those site names are valid and the hackers will create them, make them look like hotmail's Home Page and the user will be none the wiser - no 'Page Cannot be Found' messages ).
* Make the page of your email provide a Favourite.
If you 'Add to Favourites ( Internet Explorer ) or Bookmark ( Firefox ) the page you use to log in to your Hotmail or Google email account then selecting 'Favourites' ( Bookmarks ) and clicking on the marked page will ensure that you don't mistype and end up with a phished page.
* Once the page you've asked for comes up check the Address of the page you're viewing. You think you typed eg. www.gmail.com in then make sure that when the page comes up your browser's Address Bar says it's www.gmail.com - and not www.gmai.com.
Finally, if you do use Hotmail or Google Mail, log in ( and make the checks I've mentioned ) and change your password.
If you can, then you're not affected. If you can't, then contact them !
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