10,000 Hotmail accounts hacked, passwords posted online. Maybe.

[nick h.]

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8291268.stm

Thousands of Hotmail passwords have been hacked and posted online, according to reports.

Microsoft, which owns the popular web-based e-mail system, told BBC News that it was aware of the claims and that it was "investigating the situation".

BBC News has seen a list of more than 10,000 accounts, which technology blog Neowin.net said had been posted online.

The blog suggested the accounts had been hacked or had been collected as part of a phishing scheme.

Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing personal details such as bank accounts or login names and passwords.

'Rapid response'

Neowin claims the details were posted on 1 October to pastebin.com, a website commonly used by developers to share code.

Although the details have since been removed, BBC News and Neowin has seen a list of 10,027 names beginning with the letters A and B.

"[We] can confirm the accounts are genuine and most appear to be based in Europe," Tom Warren, a neowin blogger, wrote on the site.

The list included details of Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail accounts with email addresses ending hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com.

Microsoft said it had "been made aware of the claims that Windows Live IDs and passwords have been made available on the web".

"We're actively investigating the situation and will take appropriate steps as rapidly as possible," a spokesperson said.

Neowin said that it recommended Windows Live Hotmail users to change their "password and security question immediately".

Hotmail is currently the largest web-based email service.

 

[yield]

My hotmail address starts with a B so I've changed my password and security question. Hopefully that'll be enough?

 

[Venom1802]

Hotmail is shit anyway

 

[Awesome Wells]

Hotmail is shit anyway

phew, glad we sorted that out. Crisis over!

 

[Barking_Mad]

I got an e-mail from my brothers hotmail address flogging me some shit products. He only uses it for shitty stuff do it wasnt an issue.

 

[themonkeyman]

"Update 2: Microsoft has now fully confirmed our reports. According to a Microsoft spokesperson "over the weekend Microsoft learned that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customer's credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a likely phishing scheme. Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers. As part of that investigation, we determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts."

source - http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/05/thousands-of-hotmail-passwords-leaked-online

 

[stethoscope]

Some Gmail and Yahoo accounts also affected apparently...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8292299.stm

 

[salem]

Hopefully the story will educate people to the dangers of phisihing; and good password management. However other then being posted publicly (and that's not really any worse then them falling directly into baddies hands) it's not much of a story.

I'd suspect that thousands of people fall for phishing sites everyday.

I actually feel a bit sorry for Hotmail, Gmail etc as it's being reported in a tone that they are at fault when they really aren't.

 

[free spirit]

presumably the 10,000 accounts listed from a-b were only published to attract buyers for the full list, which presumably would have more like 100,000 accounts on it.