email account hacked?

piglet74

When I logged into my dads email today, there was a message from BT saying his account had temp.been locked due to some dubious activity on it and the password needed to be changed, so I have done that now, they don't have internet banking etc. they do use ebay for buying items of very small value (knitting items) so fingers crossed all is ok now.

terryw

grumpycrab wrote: »

There is a common problem with Yahoo/btinternet emails at present.

Yep, grumpycrab,got to agree with that. I have half a dozen "throwaway" email addresses with yahoo and today there have been two intrusions into two of the accounts.

I have changed the password etc but the moralis not to use yahoo for anything which could cause danger.

grumpycrab

Has Norton finished yet?

Basil1234

andrewjf wrote: »

Like what? I've been using it for years and it's been fine for me.
Turn on SSL and your email is secure.

question andrew if is so secure why are so many people reporting email accounts hacked yes ssl encryption will secure the link between you and yahoo but its yahoos back end that is the issue here!
which has been for a long while its been a long reported problem! The storys keep appearing people keep reporting same old problems but you obviously know more than the rest of us please please enlighten me and tell us how an ssl encryption protects back end server side within yahoos network is protected because from where im standing your talking out your backside, with the attitude i haven't been hacked i use ssl so the storys must be rot!
Its people like yourself that get others into trouble if you got some proper information to suggest that stories are complete rubbish with things like actual facts to back it up i'll listen, but right now your just too cool for school :rotfl:

basil :beer:

p.s. its like last july 450,000 username names and passwords got leaked but your ssl protection would have protected you from that had your details been in said leaked file!
http://www.csoonline.com/article/710804/yahoo-security-breach-shocks-experts

November2

Hi, sorry didn't get back to you, Norton all ok, so is Malware. My Dad's received an email from his sister who asked why he was sending her strange emails about starting up a business so looks like his account was used to send out spam. Didn't realise there were so may security issues with Yahoo, it's the only email address I've got and I use it for everything including banking. The time of the account breach coincided with my not being able to get on the internet due to error 102 (network change during connection) which worries me a lot. My Father rarely uses his email account, how would they have got his password? I'm rather worried now about all my various passwords, I think I'll just methodically go through everything and change them all!

grumpycrab

November2 wrote: »

Didn't realise there were so may security issues with Yahoo

I think its only one problem. But its been there for months. e.g.
http://community.bt.com/t5/Other-BB-Queries/BT-email-accounts-hacked/td-p/796762/page/49
(on page 49 there's a post from BTcare)

November2 wrote: »

how would they have got his password? I'm rather worried now about all my various passwords,

Some bright spark on here will tell us how they're hacked. One way is that passwords are not good enough. e.g.

Bad passwords : letmein, password, mothers maiden name, dog’s name, common dictionary word
Good password: zrfwwfnnbdmr (12 random characters, all letters)
Better password: cpYCy0u6NlKG (12 random characters, letters and numbers)
Some people use phrases e.g.
Ilivedat6PoparGardens which could be your birth address (but NOT your current address!) But I'm not an expert on good passwords.

andrewjf

Basil1234 wrote: »

question andrew if is so secure why are so many people reporting email accounts hacked yes ssl encryption will secure the link between you and yahoo but its yahoos back end that is the issue here!
which has been for a long while its been a long reported problem! The storys keep appearing people keep reporting same old problems but you obviously know more than the rest of us please please enlighten me and tell us how an ssl encryption protects back end server side within yahoos network is protected because from where im standing your talking out your backside, with the attitude i haven't been hacked i use ssl so the storys must be rot!
Its people like yourself that get others into trouble if you got some proper information to suggest that stories are complete rubbish with things like actual facts to back it up i'll listen, but right now your just too cool for school :rotfl:

basil :beer:

p.s. its like last july 450,000 username names and passwords got leaked but your ssl protection would have protected you from that had your details been in said leaked file!
http://www.csoonline.com/article/710804/yahoo-security-breach-shocks-experts

Well thanks for the link. I'm genuinely interested in where these security holes are, and actually quite shocked that Yahoo would be storing login credentials in plain text format. That's just so lax.
They aren't the first to allow user details to leak out, look at the scandal of Sony's Playstation Network compromised user accounts. I'm sure they won't be the last.
:beer:

mttylad

Forget using Norton, it will not solve this.

Yahoo/BT accounts have been hacked on the servers and the only way to resolve it is to regain your account and change the password, when you do make sure it is a very secure one not something simple (google how to do that).

This is happening a lot with Yahoo/BT accounts and the result is that the account sends spam direct so dont worry too much about it.

Basil1234

piglet74 the safest way to get around this issue is dump the email address he is using but first change the password to an alpha numeric with a caps in it that also helps get rid of alot of bots and make it harder to be hacked again. also the longer the better.
example password
piGlet1976321.
once done that i would just open a new email account to be safe one they would have never heard of that way you start with something fresh and clean also if you have got to use yahoo make sure that ssl is turned on as yahoo in there wisdom decide to have it turned off you have to tick the box to have it turned on!

also regards web browsing if you use Firefox they have an extension app called HTTPS-everywhere which switches standard http to an https if they have a security certificate which will secure your web browsing and also there is another addon called abine privacy suite as well which you can use to lock out certain cookies which are used to track what you look at and what you do this allows you to block certain trackers and certain cookies this also comes with a risk indicator so can see what your exposing yourself too as well worth a look.

https finder below
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-finder/?src=search
https-everywhere below
also they have version for chrome as well as firefox below
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
abine link below
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacysuite/?src=search

hope this all helps
basil

mttylad

I think Piglet is confused over something giving the PM just received...