The keylogger is a less likely scenario because it still involves infecting a
computer first before they can even get into the email. The vast majority are
likely due to a phishing email that asks the person for their
username/password for maintenance or gives them a URL to a fake page that they
login to. Within hours, the perpetrators then access the account, change the
password, and then own the account. The problem with "free" email accounts
like Yahoo or gmail is that you get what you paid for - if the account gets
taken over, it may be difficult or impossible to regain control of the account
and all your address book recipients will continue to receive emails in your
name for months or years. This is very common with aol and yahoo in
particular, not so much with gmail which is more commonly used for basic spam
using disposable, anonymous accounts. My experience comes from personal
experience, as I know several people, who have had their accounts taken over.
Plus I administer the email for a mid-size university (5000+ users) where I
see a couple of account compromised per year, often times because I have
detectors to flag suspicious outgoing email.
I'd have to agree with Barrie. What risk is there of storing your own data or
email? It is yours, isn't it? Storing this in the "cloud" puts it at risk of
being lost or taken over with no option for recovery. Barrie and I may be old
school - we see this as a move backwards. The Internet, before Microsoft got
involved and before Netscape, was essentially all cloud based, before the
cloud term existed. We moved away from that with PCs that could do their own
processing and storage. Now people are going back to remote computing again.
"Free" email is designed for the advertisers, not the email users. Gmail
presents its own problems besides account compromise. If you use gmail, you
should read your license agreement (EULA) and see what you are getting for
your email usage. They not only own your data, they scan it all and use it to
profile you for advertisers. Support is minimal. On the other hand, if you
have Internet, you most likely can get email accounts through your ISP at no
extra charge. Your email is yours and you get support for any problems. If
your account gets taken over, your ISP will help get it back. Data stays on
your computers where you can protect it.
David Councill
64 B
67 BGT
72 B
-----Original Message-----
From: mgs-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:mgs-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Simon Matthews
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 10:29 PM
To: Barrie Robinson
Cc: MGs
Subject: Re: [Mgs] Estate sale new email
On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Barrie Robinson <barrie@look.ca> wrote:
> Both Gmail and hotmail have been breached. I have had phony emails
> from someone who used their address books from these "cloud" services.
> Now it looks like Yahoo has been breached. This is the danger of using
"cloud"
> services! Your PC is big enough to keep YOUR data on YOUR site - so
> why risk using Yahoo, Gmail et al??
While I would not rule out the possibility that gmail and hotmail have been
hacked, a much more likely explanation is that a virus/keylogger install on
millions of PCs has stolen the login credentials of the users of those PCs.
Most likely it is users' PCs where the "breach" occurred.
Why risk storing the information on your local PC?
Simon
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