An anonymous user posted the hacked user id and password of more than 10,000 users of hotmail account on pastebin.com on oct 1 , 2009. Since then all details have been removed from the website. But as of preventative measure microsoft verified these hacked account news and froze all the affected accounts, in case you are among one of them u can use the recover function of hotmail, to recover your account.
Factors to be considered to verify wether your account is hacked or not:-
i) Majority of the account hacked were from europe
ii) Since , as per news 20k accounts were hacked, all the accounts which were posted in alphabetical order , the list of account which were published were starting from "a" and "b".
iii) If you still think that your account was hacked, then simply change the password.
General view on the way of hacking was done is the use of phising technique, that too was wrongly designed, as whenever u entered your password it was giving ERROR MESSAGE.
General Observation from the list:-
i)123456 was the most probable password as it was used in 64 of the accounts posted.
ii) 123456789 was the second most probable password as it was used in 18 accounts
iii) very weak passwords were used, as maximum of the accounts had password in alphanumeric a-z in same caps.
This showed that a large part of the internet users are still careless about their confidential data. Which needs the immediate attention , and spreading up of the knowledge of using strong password and the way these can be build.
Tips for making strong password:
i) Always use some thing which you can easily remember like telephone number SAY "1234567890"
ii)Try to mix the numeric numbers with alphanumeric keys like by your nick name say "SLAYER"
iii)Try to use the special keys like "@, #,$,%,^,etc"
iv)Try to use all the above 3 methods mix it up, if possible and convinient for you to remember try to change the caps order
eg. if i make the password then it could be 1234567890@sL@yeR, $L@yer@1234567890
see how easy it is to make the strong password and make your account secure... and yes be aware of phising as it doesnt matter how strong your password is, by this trick you yourself is supplying the password.If you think your password have been compromised by phising then immediatly change it.
Post a Comment