A list of over 10,000 usernames and passwords for Microsoft Live ID was leaked October 1st on the web site pastebin.com which is a tool for collaborative debugging and editing, usually for developers to paste code snippets etc. to share with others.
The list was later removed but is said to include usernames starting with “Ar” and going up to “Bl”, suggesting there could be additional lists.
Neowin.net managed to get a look at the list before it was removed and confirm that the accounts are genuine and most of them appears to be based in Europe.
The account details were most likely gathered through a phishing scheme, so it could be the users themselves who entered their e-mail address (login) and their passwords at a website where they shouldn’t be on…
Follow this article from neowin.net for updated information about this story.
If you’re in doubt whether or not you might have entered your user details on a phishing site lately, I strongly recommend you go change your Hotmail / Microsoft Live ID password as soon as possible. Actually, you should probably consider changing it anyway – after all, when is the last time you changed your important passwords? 🙂
OMG! 🙂 I think I’d better check my Microsoft Live accounts. How embarrassing and worse to have your username and password on pastebin.com. Thanks for the heads up!
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That’s really bad..Hope hackers dont make the most of it 🙁
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Phishing techniques are on the rise and we must be aware of it! This is a real bad scene man. 10,000 accounts….Gosh..
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ha ha:)) that’s why I don’t use hotmail… i’m kiddning. gmail also had a problem, not like this, but they had a problem with some programs so they had to reset a few thousands email accounts:D