Showing posts with label compromised email address. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compromised email address. Show all posts
Monday, October 5, 2009
Hotmail passwords
Oooops. Not clear how all this happened, though... A phishing scam able to fool 10,000 users at once sounds fishy.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Hacked website leads to spam surge
Last month, one website of which I was a registered member got hacked. The hackers somehow managed to find a way in, got their hands on the phpBB user table and published everybody's username, email address and password for everyone to see on some other website. I guess this is the risk you take when you give out any information about yourself on the internet...
I don't care about my username or my password being advertized as they are now, because they have little to do with anything confidential. As a matter of fact, I had given a very simple password when I signed up, which I had never used anywhere else and which was only intended to be used on that site.
I have however been foolish enough to use one of my main email addresses as my contact address and am now reaping the fruits of my stupidity. This address had not been spam-free, of course, but it has clearly seen a surge in the number of unwanted messages since the hacking incident.
Over the 16 days prior to the incident, I received a total of 63 spam emails, with a daily average of a little under 4, a minimum of 1 and maximum of 8. Over the 16 days after the incident, the total amount of spam messages reached 165, with a daily average of about 10, a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 20. As a result of my stupidity, I am now receiving about 160% more spam overall than before (and counting, presumably).
Above is a chart of the daily spam activity recorded on my compromised address just before and just after the hacking incident. Can you guess when the user table information got published?
I don't care about my username or my password being advertized as they are now, because they have little to do with anything confidential. As a matter of fact, I had given a very simple password when I signed up, which I had never used anywhere else and which was only intended to be used on that site.
I have however been foolish enough to use one of my main email addresses as my contact address and am now reaping the fruits of my stupidity. This address had not been spam-free, of course, but it has clearly seen a surge in the number of unwanted messages since the hacking incident.
| period | total | daily average | daily min | daily max |
| before | 63 | 3.94 | 1 | 8 |
| after | 165 | 10.31 | 5 | 20 |
Over the 16 days prior to the incident, I received a total of 63 spam emails, with a daily average of a little under 4, a minimum of 1 and maximum of 8. Over the 16 days after the incident, the total amount of spam messages reached 165, with a daily average of about 10, a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 20. As a result of my stupidity, I am now receiving about 160% more spam overall than before (and counting, presumably).
Above is a chart of the daily spam activity recorded on my compromised address just before and just after the hacking incident. Can you guess when the user table information got published?
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