More than 10,000 Hotmail accounts hacked

carl owen · #1 (**permalink**) 10-05-09, 18:47

Hackers were successful in creating a fake website like that of Hotmail and also found out more than 10000 Hotmail accounts and passwords of those accounts.

This act is commonly known as 'phishing', however, no one could even imagine that this act can actually fool more than 10000 users but the hackers did this and got all the login information of users. The list of the email addresses and passwords was given on the internet but still it might be possible that hackers actually have hacked more than what they had displayed on the internet.

Hence, all the users of Hotmail, MSN and Live are suggested to change there passwords asap to avoid any further damages as email addresses may contain some credit card information etc. which are really confidential. Most of the email addresses are said to be genuine and have been created from Europe as reported.

'We are working diligently to help customers regain control of their accounts.'
says Microsoft spokesperson.

BodShane · #2 (**permalink**) 10-06-09, 12:44

WOW!

I am sure Microsoft has to work quite a lot to gain user's trust once again.

What do you think ?

carl owen · #3 (**permalink**) 10-06-09, 13:39

Certainly. I think Microsoft has to make sure that they have excellent security measures in order to make sure that the email accounts and passwords of users are very safe as email accounts of users may contain confidential information like their Credit card and online transaction details which shouldn't be leaked in any condition.

jason s · #4 (**permalink**) 10-06-09, 14:48

According to Microsoft criminals who hacked users' Hotmail accounts did so without penetrating the company's servers.

carl owen · #5 (**permalink**) 10-07-09, 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by jason s

According to Microsoft criminals who hacked users' Hotmail accounts did so without penetrating the company's servers.

A Microsoft spokesperson declared that all the email addresses were hacked by Phishing which actually involves the creation of fake pages which resembles the original pages of the website and users think that they are original pages of the website and hence use the login information to login.

As the login information is used by the users on the fake pages created by hackers, hackers get the login information of the users.

Phishing does not require the login information of the servers on which the website is hosted and hence Microsoft may be right in saying that Hotmail accounts were not hacked by penetrating the company's servers.

Hope this helps...