Recently, Microsoft has confirmed that in excess of 10,000 hotmail passwords have been stolen and posted online.
As we highlighted in our September stats, phishing attacks are still very popular with criminals, and the general public need to be on their guard at all times against the increasingly sophisticated ploys that are being used by phishers. As the full extent of the Hotmail breach is still unknown, all Hotmail account holders should take action to protect themselves and their data as soon as possible.
We would strongly recommend that Hotmail users change their passwords, secret questions and answers immediately. Given that at least 60 per cent of people reuse their passwords, we would also urge customers to change other accounts where they use the same password as phishers now know that they get access to more than one account by stealing a password.
This is a perfect opportunity for people with multiple online accounts to review the strength and security of their passwords. As we have previously mentioned in our Authentication guide, the use of strong, complex and secure passwords is becoming vital, especially given the amount of personal and financial data we now store online.
Update: Latest reports state that Hotmail is not the only email service provider to fall victim to this attack. Therefore we recommend that you change your password and secret question for any online email accounts that you have.
[...] been just over two months since more than 10,000 Hotmail passwords were stolen and posted online, now, just in case we needed a reminder about the security of our [...]