10 replies to this topic

[dragonfang00]

my email has been hacked.. dunno but it looks like it. then this email popped out of my email account in yahoo: nco_que_alcastillo [at] hotmail [dot] com [unverified]
is this email sounds familiar? of course I recovered my email. I have an alternate email so tough luck for him/her.

I already changed my password.

Is there any of you guys can suggests some email knowledge?

I am a programmer so I know my stuff.. The password on both my email are created using a PHP script I created so both password is a unique alpha-numeric strings. I don't really know how he/she got my password though.

Edited by dragonfang00, 17 October 2009 - 12:12 AM.

[minimcmonkey]

Its possible that you have a keylogger or spyware on your computer that could have allowed a hacker to gain access to you email account.
alternatively, the email could have been sent by an anonymous email client - there are tools that can be used to make an email appear to come from an address it does not really come from.
Make sure you run an anti-virus/anti-spyware, dont log into account on PCs you dont trust, dont save your password in insecure storage (use an encrypted password store) and make sure all your passwords are unique (dont re-use passwords tat you are already using)

[dragonfang00]

minimcmonkey, on Oct 17 2009, 06:21 AM, said:

Its possible that you have a keylogger or spyware on your computer that could have allowed a hacker to gain access to you email account.
alternatively, the email could have been sent by an anonymous email client - there are tools that can be used to make an email appear to come from an address it does not really come from.
Make sure you run an anti-virus/anti-spyware, dont log into account on PCs you dont trust, dont save your password in insecure storage (use an encrypted password store) and make sure all your passwords are unique (dont re-use passwords tat you are already using)

It may be possible but I have a regular scan schedule. I am using MalwareBytes, avast! Antivirus, and Avira AntiVir. If it's a key logger I don't know how it ended up in my computer. And the email came from yahoo itself. after that message I can't log in to my email account. I use different password for all my accounts important or not. Even here in trap is a unique password. I only use my computer logging in to my accounts if the account is important. Well, I don't actually use a different computer except mine.

Thanks

Edited by dragonfang00, 17 October 2009 - 12:54 PM.

[SpiderVV]

Hackers sometimes hack random IP's or hack a website you're registered on to get an IP. There are numerous ways that it could have got in.
Scanning doesn't really detect keyloggers as they could only connect in the moment they know you're writing a password...

There's another thing, Yahoo is very s%#! no offence. It has been attacked by hackers since the start and I don't like their service at all. :/ So look out and be safe

Edited by SpiderVV, 17 October 2009 - 12:53 PM.

[dragonfang00]

SpiderVV, on Oct 17 2009, 08:53 PM, said:

Hackers sometimes hack random IP's or hack a website you're registered on to get an IP. There are numerous ways that it could have got in.
Scanning doesn't really detect keyloggers as they could only connect in the moment they know you're writing a password...

There's another thing, Yahoo is very s%#! no offence. It has been attacked by hackers since the start and I don't like their service at all. :/ So look out and be safe

Thanks.
Do you have anything in mind what to do? Do I need to reformat my hard disk? I actually don't know because this is the first time one of my accounts were hijacked. And in my research and finding reviews, those three can detect keyloggers.

[Nameless_]

Emails are very easily hacked, especially if they are common ones like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and etc, etc. So you shouldn't be surprised if you got hacked. Like SpiderVV said, you might just be a random person on this hacker's list, and that he wasn't really targeting you at all, but just want to hack your our of the thrill or the fun or even just experience of it.

It's good to have an alternate email, though this means that you will have to convince all your friends to use your new email and update them with the new information of your email being hacked. If you have a popular website and/or you are famous on the internet, especially if you own a blog, then you shouldn't be surprised if you are especially being targeted to get hacked. And if you are, then your webhost or your adsense (or whatever advertising company you use) might send in some crucial information and that account might get hacked too.

So if I was you, the first thing should be to check all of that and change the email to your new alternate address. Figuring out how to retrieve your email back comes second. I know that even Google Mail got hacked once, and it was targeting random visitors by only then visiting a specially set up site, and it only works for Google Mail. They insert a filter through into your email account (only if you are already logged into Google Mail), and you won't notice a thing because emails containing certain words will get sent to another email address (the hacker's) and then after that, it will get deleted automatically, and you won't notice anything. If you want to stop this hack, you will have to go to "Filters" in the Settings area and delete the filter that was automatically put there. So, as I said, it is pretty easy to get hacked...

But not so easy as to retrieving your email back, especially if the password is changed... so about that...
But in your case, I mean, if a random email pops out, then I would just think that it was junk mail. I mean... well, the hacker didn't really access your email account with your password, did they? I personally think that it is just junk mail.

And no, I haven't seen the email address before... but changing your password is a good precaution. You should do that often, and password hacks can take an incredibly unbelievable long time, so if you change then periodically, you should have nothing to worry about.

[dragonfang00]

I think I can gain access to my email again. Microsoft verified me as the owner of the email and is just waiting for the email that will contain the reset password link. But Yahoo! didn't because they are asking for my secret q&a. It sucks because they don't give alternative validation like Microsoft did. As of this moment I don't think I will try to use Yahoo!'s mail client again.

anyways, thanks nameless for that.

[dragonfang00]

I just found out that whenever you change you're secret Q&A in your yahoo account, you can still use the old one. WTF??? the reason I change the secret Q&A because the hacker who hacked that account is using the Q&A to hack it again and again. Is this how yahoo works?? what a lame excuse for an account. I should have used a hotmail instead of yahoo..

[inverse_bloom]

If i were you i wouldn't format your drive but install a demo of Kaspersky, hijack this and perhaps a registry analyzer to search for anything peculiar (not the average reg cleaner, but something which looks for malicious programs). From those programs you should get a very good overall check of your system on top of what you have, of course if you want to be totally sure...

Personally i dread the possibility of that happening to me, for that reason i try to delete most stuff in my emails that contain sensitive data. I change passwords every 3 months and go online through a small virtual machine installed that can be scanned through quickly.

[dragonfang00]

Now I am really pissed off. Even if you change your security Q&A the hacker/s can still use the old security Q&A.. what the f*** is that? Now I know that yahoo's system is a total s***. So lame. I will never create another email from that company again.