Fergie's Tech Blog

Hacker Leaks Thousands of Hotmail Passwords

Gregg Keizer writes on ComputerWorld:

More than 10,000 usernames and passwords for Windows Live Hotmail accounts were leaked online late last week, according to a report by Neowin.net, which claimed that they were posted by an anonymous user on pastebin.com last Thursday.

The post has since been taken down.

Neowin reported that it had seen part of the list. "Neowin has seen part of the list posted and can confirm the accounts are genuine and most appear to be based in Europe," said the site. "The list details over 10,000 accounts starting from A through to B, suggesting there could be additional lists."

Hotmail usernames and passwords are often used for more than logging into Microsoft's online e-mail service, however. Many people log onto a wide range of Microsoft's online properties -- including the trial version of the company's Web-based Office applications, the Connect beta test site and the Skydrive online storage service -- with their Hotmail passwords.

It was unknown how the usernames and passwords were obtained, but Neowin speculated that they were the result of either a hack of Hotmail or a massive phishing attack that had tricked users into divulging their log-on information.

posted by Fergie @ 10/05/2009 11:50:00 AM