probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Woke up this morning to find my facebook and yahoo mail accounts had been hacked into and the passwords changed. I've managed to get back into them and changed the passwords (and all of the security questions that they changed), but is there anything else I need to do to stop it happening again? Is it likely to have been a real person doing this or a bot of some sort? Whoever it was changed my profile pic to a crab and kindly declared to my friends that I now have crabs. I'm a bit worried because my email has an accounts folder with password details for a few other sites (stupid I know:twak:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Change all your details on everything and then set fire to your house, it's the only safe option Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Change all your details on everything and then set fire to your house, it's the only safe option Dammit, I thought that might be the case, and I only bought the house last year. Still, if thats the only way I guess I have no choice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branners Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Proper hackers would break in to your accounts to do something like send spam or gather up all the email addresses for a spam database. I find it odd that they would just update your status to say you have crabs. I would suggest it is one of your mates that found your machine logged in or knew your password. I would check your sent items and your deleted items to make sure nothing untoward was sent out of the account. Yahoo tells me that after 10 failed logon attempts the account gets locked out, I dont actually believe that but if it is true then it means they got past your password without simply force breaking it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 I had considered this, but the changes were made at about 2am this morning, and my passwords are fairly secure and certainly not guessable. I've checked all sent items and there isn't anything suspicious there at all. I did think it was strange that the status update was changed as I had also assumed it had been done for phishing email purposes. I've changed all important passwords now so hopefully that will be the end of it, can't help but worry though. Just confused as to how it was hacked in the first place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCK10 Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Sounds like something a mate would do as a prank. If you've signed in on a mates pc and its automatically saved the password and they've realised, they might have taken advantage of the oppertunity. As branners has said, if it was a serious hacker they would've done a lot worst that tell tell everyone you have crabs lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 I only ever use my home and work pc to sign in to email or facebook though. There is no access to the office at that time and I was tucked up in bed at that time with the missus. Also, the passwrds for the email and facebook are different and there are no facebook details on any of my saved emails. I'm just surprised they managed to get into both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branners Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Is your attached email account for Facebook the same as the one that was hacked? All they had to do was request a forgotten password and it would email it in to your hacked mail account, and then off they go. Hence why its worth checking the deleted and sent items. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 It is the email account I use for facebook, but I had nothing in the deleted items. All i had was an email notifying me that the password had been changed in the inbox, but no emails for forgotten password/password reset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Is your attached email account for Facebook the same as the one that was hacked? All they had to do was request a forgotten password and it would email it in to your hacked mail account, and then off they go. Hence why its worth checking the deleted and sent items. Ignore my last post, I just checked again and you're right. I missed that one. So it looks like they got my email first. Without knowing my password what are the methods that these people use to get in? I'm fairly clued up with computers but not on the hacking thing. Just want to be able to better protect myself in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Checked your machine for a keylogger? Edit : ahh just seen your last post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branners Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 There are a few ways in to an email account. They can either try forcing the password by trying again and again using a dictionary crack to try every word that could be a password. But that takes days or weeks and would hopefully be noticed by Yahoo. Or they entice you in to a web site and ask you for logon details, you get want you want from that web site (ie downloads, music, remote control software) and think nothing of it. They then have an email address and the password you used for their site. I would say at least 50% of people use the same password for many different things, so they get lucky with that quite often. Or they find a machine you have been logged on to and reset the password from there. Could be via a remote control system on your computer. And the last one is that they could in theory catch your password as you log in to your email if you are not on a secure page. They would need to be monitoring traffic through a specific internet router to find it but that is also possible. Did you use the same password for your email account as you did for other logons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evinX Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Had this happen to me, had my yahoo done to, and i shut down my paypal as a precaution, got in contact with a live yahoo support team, and got my accounts back from there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 There are a few ways in to an email account. They can either try forcing the password by trying again and again using a dictionary crack to try every word that could be a password. But that takes days or weeks and would hopefully be noticed by Yahoo. Or they entice you in to a web site and ask you for logon details, you get want you want from that web site (ie downloads, music, remote control software) and think nothing of it. They then have an email address and the password you used for their site. I would say at least 50% of people use the same password for many different things, so they get lucky with that quite often. Or they find a machine you have been logged on to and reset the password from there. Could be via a remote control system on your computer. And the last one is that they could in theory catch your password as you log in to your email if you are not on a secure page. They would need to be monitoring traffic through a specific internet router to find it but that is also possible. Did you use the same password for your email account as you did for other logons? I always use different passwords for all of my accounts, for that reason. Like I said, I only use my home or work computer for email so i can only assume it was one of those that was compromised. I've got a netgear wireless router at home which I thought would be secure. When I set it up I think I used WEP/WPA2 (or something like that). My work PC isn't wireless so that shouldn't be the problem there. Our IT Support company have remote access but I usually have to manually let them on when they request access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probrox Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Had this happen to me, had my yahoo done to, and i shut down my paypal as a precaution, got in contact with a live yahoo support team, and got my accounts back from there Paypal and ebay were the first sites I changed my password on. I really don't need anyone wasting my money for me, i do a good enough job of that myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attero Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 The more personal your account for whatever you have an account on is, the more secure you should make your password. My passwords would contain case-sensitive alphanumeric characters. Think of an unusual word. Make one or more of the characters a capital letter, and turn convertible letters into numbers. For example, canvendish would be something like c4v3Nd1sh. That's my useful tip on passwords for the day. I have passwords of all varieties and pretty much different for everything. The least important accounts have the same easy password. Ones with credit card information have the most difficult. Facebook also has one of the most difficult as Facebookers liked to be hacked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotty71 Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 , but is there anything else I need to do to stop it happening again? Stay off the Porn and downloading dodgy R5's On a serious note it sounds to me like a prank as stated they could have done alot worse. Keylogger IMO or some kind of phishing website, but to give details on yahoo and facebook from a phishing site or email would be amatuer to say the least. You gotta admit though changing your pic to that crustacean and saying you have crabs is ... well fookin funny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branners Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 The more personal your account for whatever you have an account on is, the more secure you should make your password. My passwords would contain case-sensitive alphanumeric characters. Think of an unusual word. Make one or more of the characters a capital letter, and turn convertible letters into numbers. For example, canvendish would be something like c4v3Nd1sh. That's my useful tip on passwords for the day. I have passwords of all varieties and pretty much different for everything. The least important accounts have the same easy password. Ones with credit card information have the most difficult. Facebook also has one of the most difficult as Facebookers liked to be hacked. Microsoft recommend you have a 'pass phrase' now, so something like 'i have crabs' would be a great password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotty71 Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Microsoft recommend you have a 'pass phrase' now, so something like 'i have crabs' would be a great password. Classic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attero Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 1 H4v3 Cr4b5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbloodyturbo Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 i'm sure i've heard of people putting key loggers on their own laptops so that when mates come round and ask if can they check their mail and such like, that person can go back and check their key logs for your password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotty71 Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 i'm sure i've heard of people putting key loggers on their own laptops so that when mates come round and ask if can they check their mail and such like, that person can go back and check their key logs for your password. who would do that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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