Some of you may have read in my "apologies" thread that somehow my email got scammed/hacked, sending out spam to everyone I ever emailed (I got back some 250+ returns from emails that didn't make it)
Yesterday, I found an email in my spam folder that was supposedly from my email provider but was obviously a phishing attempt. It was send to me the day after I changed my email password and basically stated that they thought my email account had been compromised and that I should reply to this email with my password so they can double check it with their records.
I replied with a nice "two word" email password for them to try... begins with an F and ends with a U.
I just find it suspecious that the day after I got hacked and changed the password.. I got this phishing attempt. I guess they tried to use my email again and found the change in password wouldn't let them. Scammers are getting sneaky.
What I don't understand is how they got my password. I have never given it away and I did a complete virus scan on the computer that took hours and it found nothing (lot of adware though). I would not say I was paranoid about my password, but I certainly did my best to avoid it getting out
yamaha
SuperDork
2/1/13 10:55 a.m.
Password cracking is pretty easy........i've seen software in the past meant for itunes only.
Not unusual at all, they were trying to regain control of your account. The spammer probably has some kind of "hijacked email account management system" that sent it automatically when it couldn't log in anymore.
If you have a recovery question make sure that's changed too BTW.
There's a good chance your password was brute-forced. Was it a word that might be found in a dictionary or encyclopedia? If so, there you go.
that I did Gameboy.. it was a word taken at random from a French to english dictionary. Now it is an alphanumeric that I find to be a pain in the ass to remember
password with spaces in them are the MOST secure. even if the pw is "pass word" that is stronger than "P@s5W0rD"
peter
HalfDork
2/1/13 12:13 p.m.
Grtechguy wrote:
password with spaces in them are the MOST secure. even if the pw is "pass word" that is stronger than "P@s5W0rD"
You're going to have to explain that one.
My current password strategy:
XKCD
Duke
PowerDork
2/1/13 12:36 p.m.
Too bad I have never been part of a system that would accept spaces in passwords.
Just use an underscore with the XKCD method then. 
Duke
PowerDork
2/1/13 12:52 p.m.
I also don't get where the 44 bits of entropy come from, but that's OK.
