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So how did it Happen

By Mitch Roberson, on June 15th, 2010

Many people are asking how it happened and a few have offered an opinion of how it happened. so let me see if I can enlighten people. I have equipment at my house that logs all traffic in and out of my network. So after this happened I started looking through my traffic and my logs.

And so far I have found nothing suspicious and the traffic does not lie. So after reviewing the data. I sat down with my wife and started asking the questions about where she has accessed her account from. and I found out that she has used 2 community computers. both were Windows XP and odds are they had a Key logger in place.

so how did they get into so many accounts. Well that comes from the fact that like most users she used the same password for most accounts (not any more) once they had access to her email. they searched for common info like “ebay” “Facebook” and others. And since many of these sites send you updates to your primary account listed and they include the user name “dear Username”. then all the attacker did was find those websites and try the account username with the password they had for her email.

Since they were all the same he was in like Flynn. Once in he started doing all the things they could to collect cash and equipment. Luckly we caught on. However they realized it. and started changing personal information on the hotmail account and others. As well as the infamous “security question” This locked us out.

Now on a good note EBAY was fast and quick to help us. and we have control of that account. However Hotmail has not been so helpful we are still locked out of the account. to no avail this is some what disastrous. my wife has stuff in there from almost 10 years ago.

So what does this mean, well you should follow some basic security steps:

    Don’t use the same password on all accounts
    Don’t use community computers if you have to use Single use login passwords
    Change passwords often
    Use strong password’s or a passphrase at least 8-15 characters
    pay attention to accounts

         

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