AUSTRALIAN HOTMAIL CUSTOMER Andrew Trousdale has developed a deep dislike of webmail after his account was hacked. The Sydney Morning Herald features a tale of woe today that should be a caution for all Hotmail users.
Trousdale logged onto his Hotmail account to find most of his emails missing. He didn't realise what had happened at first but that was the last time he managed to log on. Whoever hacked his account changed the password.
What followed is a story of bureaucratic stupidity on the part of Microsoft. Trousdale tried to close down his account but Microsoft would not believe he was the owner of the address. The hijacker had changed the online details so, despite the rather obvious link of the Hotmail address being "andrew_trousdale@hotmail.com", Microsoft did not believe he was the account holder.
Meanwhile the hijacker was busily forwarding personal emails to people in Trousdale's online address book. The hijacker also managed to track down a site that Trousdale visited and taunted him in its chatroom, going so far as to naming his wife and two daughters. Scary stuff, especially as the hijacker posted Trousdale's phone number.
Trousdale claimed that he was told around 8000 webmail addresses are stolen each day. If you're a webmail user, you might want to consider making sure you have a decent password.
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