10'000 Hotmail Passwords leaked

Jawneh

Jawneh

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

Neowin has received information regarding a possible Windows Live Hotmail "hack" or phishing scheme where password details of thousands of Hotmail accounts have been posted online.

An anonymous user posted details of the accounts on October 1 at pastebin.com, a site commonly used by developers to share code snippets. The details have since been removed but Neowin has seen part of the list posted and can confirm the accounts are genuine and most appear to be based in Europe. The list details over 10,000 accounts starting from A through to B, suggesting there could be additional lists. Currently it appears only accounts used to access Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail have been posted, this includes @hotmail.com, @msn.com and @live.com accounts.

Neowin has reported this immediately to Microsoft's Security Response Center and to Microsoft's PR teams in the UK and US and we are currently awaiting feedback on the situation. As this is a breaking story please check back frequently as the story will be updated as soon as more information becomes available.

If you are a Windows Live Hotmail user Neowin recommends that you change your password and security question immediately.

Thanks to Chris for the news tip

Update: According to BBC News, Microsoft is currently "investigating the situation and will take appropriate steps as rapidly as possible."

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."
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Well that's not cool. I guess it's a good thing that I don't use Hotmail and live in Europe.
 
It does say MOST APPEAR to be European, so if you do have one of the emails listed there, and it begins with either A or B, you really should go change your password.

There's no harm in being cautious.
 
+1

Gmail is the best. Yahoo...just fails, mostly because it's overused and full of spam.
 
Another thing I can throw at those hotmail users, YAY !
 
Another Microsoft let down...they can't even protect their own servers......fail, Gmail FTW
 
Hotmail is the best email service Ive used.... 7 years now, changed my password once. Its more trustworthy that yahoo or AOL... and it was probably an employee who leaked them and probably for money...
 
lol idiots !! yahoo 10 years, and never had a single problem with it yet and have not yet changed my password yet.
 
BL4SPH3MY said:
lol idiots !! yahoo 10 years, and never had a single problem with it yet and have not yet changed my password yet.
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None that has been admitted publicly. :P

All of them have their set of problems, but whenever it's involving Microsoft, it's already news. With the other ones, it has to be something bigger so that they get mentioned.

It'd be stupid to say that only hotmail/live/msn addresses get phished and the rest dont. It's a matter of which email the user puts on these sits, and clearly hotmail is the most popular and most used email, so it's more likely that those get put there.
 
I use Hotmail for friends and Facebook, but my Gmail is used whenever I register for anything that requires an email or the one that goes on my resume.
 
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