Access member only content, take part in discussions with comments on blogs, news and reviews and receive all the latest security industry news directly to your inbox. Join now for free.
Processing registration... Please wait.
This process can take up to a minute to complete.
A confirmation email has been sent to your email address - SUPPLIED EMAIL HERE. Please click on the link in the email to verify your email address. You need to verify your email before you can start posting.
If you do not receive your confirmation email within the next few minutes, it may be because the email has been captured by a junk mail filter. Please ensure you add the domain @scmagazine.com.au to your white-listed senders.
A user of the social news website Reddit recently discovered more than 47,000 stolen credentials for Hotmail.com and MSN.com.
An individual with the handle “Roddds” found the credentials on Friday after investigating a phishing message they received.
“Earlier today, I received one of those run-of-the-mill phishing emails,” Roddds wrote in a Reddit post on Friday. “I opened the URL that the email wanted me to open, but leaving out the .php file in the end.”
The user was directed to a server, which among other files, hosted a text file containing 47,130 email and password pairs for Hotmail and MSN. They then wrote a script to test whether the accounts were valid. After running the script for two hours, 85 percent of the credentials turned out to be accurate.
Roddds notified Microsoft, which owns MSN and Hotmail, about the issue. The server hosting the file was subsequently taken down.
“Guys at Microsoft were extremely nice, and it also felt like I had actually done something,” Roddds wrote.
Upon being notified of the issue, Microsoft immediately marked all affected accounts as compromised and has contacted all account owners to help them regain access, a company spokesperson in a statement Tuesday.
This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com
To begin commenting right away, you can log in below or register an account if you don't yet have one. Please read our guidelines on commenting. Offending posts will be removed and your access may be suspended. Abusive or obscene language will not be tolerated. The comments below do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of SC Magazine, Haymarket Media or its employees.
