• Home
  • About 404TS
  • Contact

404 Tech Support

Where IT Help is Found

  • Articles
    • Code
    • Entertainment
    • Going Green
    • Hardware, Gadgets, and Products
    • Management
    • Network
    • News
    • Operating Systems
    • Security and Privacy
    • Software
    • System Administration
    • Talking Points
    • Tech Solutions
    • Web
    • Webmaster
  • Reviews
  • Media
    • Infographics
    • Videos
  • Tech Events
  • Tools
    • How do I find my IP address?
    • Browser and plugin tests
  • Get a Technical Consultation
You are here: Home / Media / Hotmail No Longer Allows Common Password, Takes Strides To Prevent Account Hijacking

Hotmail No Longer Allows Common Password, Takes Strides To Prevent Account Hijacking

2011-07-16 by Jason

Hotmail has introduced a few new features to help protect users from account hijacking. I’ve seen a lot of hijacking in the past few years where somebody will get access to your e-mail account like a Hotmail or Yahoo!. Instead of taking over the account and changing the password or anything, they might send a few messages out to all your contacts and the messages might be spam or malicious. Even trickier hijackers will set a vacation or out-of-office message so that every time somebody e-mails your account, they automatically get a spam reply.

Hotmail wants to help neutralize these hijacked accounts. If you receive a malicious or spammy e-mail from a known contact, you can mark the message as “My friend’s been hacked!’

You can also mark a message as junk and choose to suggest that the account has been hacked.

With enough votes that an account has been hacked, Hotmail will send the account into a quarantine where the spammer won’t be able to access the account and the account holder will have to verify their ownership to regain control.

These reports work with Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Gmail but it’s unknown if the other companies will react to reports of a compromised account.

In addition to crowd-sourcing the hijacked account reporting, Hotmail is taking a step to prevent accounts from being hijacked in the first place – they’re disallowing common passwords. We’ve all seen the stats from big data breaches where they show ‘123456’ and ‘password’ as the most common passwords. Hotmail will be blocking those passwords for new accounts or password change requests as well as other passwords they see shared by a large number of their users. They may also require current common passwords to be changed at some point in the future.

Both changes sound logical and like the whole Internet can benefit from them. We’ll see if other e-mail providers take similar approaches and establish protocols for quarantining compromised accounts.

Filed Under: Media, Security and Privacy

Trending

  • Windows 8 Action Center: Find and install an antispyware app online (Important)
    In Security and Privacy, Software, Tech Solutions
  • Using RunAs With Active Directory Users And Computers and Group Policy Management Console
    In Code, Security and Privacy, System Administration
  • Update Malwarebytes manually without a network connection
    In Security and Privacy, Software

Latest Media Posts

Find Out Where To Download SNES ROMs

Find Out Where To Download SNES ROMs

Multifunctional Video Conversion Tools – Wondershare Video Converter

Multifunctional Video Conversion Tools – Wondershare Video Converter

  • Popular
  • Latest
  • Today Week Month All
  • How to ‘Unblock’ multiple files at a time with PowerShell How to 'Unblock' multiple files at a time with PowerShell
  • Increase IIS Private Memory Limit to improve WSUS availability Increase IIS Private Memory Limit to improve WSUS availability
  • Command line to take ownership and change permissions Command line to take ownership and change permissions
  • Creating and editing views in phpMyAdmin Creating and editing views in phpMyAdmin
  • Configure Outlook to recurring appointments for the last weekday of the month Configure Outlook to recurring appointments for the last weekday of the month
  • How to Purchase Cryptocurrencies? How to Purchase Cryptocurrencies?
  • Top 6 necessary aspects to consider when hiring Angular developers Top 6 necessary aspects to consider when hiring Angular developers
  • Full guide on drawbacks and benefits of Node.js for making the perfect choice for your business Full guide on drawbacks and benefits of Node.js for making the perfect choice for your business
  • Benefits of End-To-End Testing That Will Match Company Expectations Benefits of End-To-End Testing That Will Match Company Expectations
  • 3 Key Features of Pets Health Monitoring Systems 3 Key Features of Pets Health Monitoring Systems
Ajax spinner

Elevator Pitch

404 Tech Support documents solutions to IT problems, shares worthwhile software and websites, and reviews hardware, consumer electronics, and technology-related books.

Subscribe to 404TS articles by email.

Recent Posts

  • How to Purchase Cryptocurrencies?
  • Top 6 necessary aspects to consider when hiring Angular developers
  • Full guide on drawbacks and benefits of Node.js for making the perfect choice for your business

Search

FTC Disclaimer

404TechSupport is an Amazon.com affiliate; when you click on an Amazon link from 404TS, the site gets a cut of the proceeds from whatever you buy. This site also uses Skimlinks for smart monetization of other affiliate links.
Use of this site requires displaying and viewing ads as they are presented.

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in