Is This Legitimate?

[cabinetman]

That's irony for you... everyone knows your password except you.

That's inappropriate IMO. Is helping rubbing salt in the wound? I am open to positive suggestions.

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[cwsmith]

I'd like to think that MSN should have some avenue for you to change your account password, via either direct contact or by going to the MSN website and acquiring support from there.

As I said earlier, I don't use MSN, but a quick check of the site and in the area where it asked me to "sign-in" I noticed this "reset your password" page:

https://account.live.com/ResetPasswo...3d1300&lc=1033


I sure hope this is helpful to you,

CWS

[cabinetman]

From another forum a member had the same problem...

Ironic you mention this. I had the same thing happen to me today. I think it was because I sent out a couple of emails to extended family (I have a very large family on both sides), and hotmail seems to think I was sending spam. I entered my phone number like they asked above and didn't fill out anything extra except for my password and to change the password. They say that they need more info to help prevent the account from being hijacked, but I see no reason they need to know anything beyond the bare minimum.

When I found out that the phone # got it done, and there wasn't a problem with doing it that way, that's exactly what I did. Since I couldn't get into my email, I couldn't remember sufficient data to substantiate it was my account. So, I figured...what the heck, I entered my cell phone #, and within a minute, I got a voice with code numbers that I used as a sign in and then changed my password.

When I finally got into the mail, there were 6 emails sent out that were spam, but none to any of my contacts. Seems like MSN didn't wait long to lock it up. Thanks to all that offered help and suggestions.

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[natausch]

Recently I received a Trojan warning while visiting a certain something something creek website. Being lazy I ignored it, assuming that it was just an advertisement cookie reader (security is fairly strong with Kapersky AV). Almost immediatly after my hotmail account started blasting out spam emails to my contact list which resulted in a blocked account error message.

1. Check your account on a different/public computer
2. Install anti-virus softward, ad-adware, etc to clean up your computer
3. Recover your hotmail address, using the email to second account or text option

[jking]

The part you mentioned about asking for a credit card seemed suspect to me. I don't know why Hotmail would need it to verify your identity if you can supply enough of the other information.

I think the suggestions about trying to log in/reset password using a different computer are really good ideas. Doing it from a different computer than normal would prevent any possible bug on your computer that might be redirecting to a different site.

When my wife had her spam hack, I changed the password right before Hotmail locked her account. I did notice that she was always logged in to MSN & her hotmail. I recommended that she stop doing that as a precaution.

For future, you might consider writing down you password & keeping it in a safe place in case it's needed again for something like this.

[Mildoc]

Actually, IMHO, this may well be REAL, not phishing, UNLESS you responded to an email. From your post sounds like "no," just tried to log in.

Have you EVER given your credit card # to Microsoft, MSN, Live, etc?

They only ask for the last 4 numbers, not the whole number.

OTOH, you NEVER log out? Bet your account got compromised, in which case this "might" be fake.

LOG OUT of ALL sites or you are asking for trouble. Hope if you bank online you LOG OUT every time!!!!! Not all sites automatically log you out. Surprised MS site doesn't.

Just in case, I would contact MS by phone. There should be a number somewhere on their various web sites.

[radhak]

... So, I figured...what the heck, I entered my cell phone #, and within a minute, I got a voice with code numbers that I used as a sign in and then changed my password.

Good, that got resolved well! The cell phone number way is easier; of course, sometimes I think it is too easy...

That other way might work too, but I don't trust any instructions that says '.. provide your past passwords...'. After all, why would anybody need that! And the only thing they should do with passwords is, reset it. ie, the old one gets disabled and you create yourself a new one. And nobody else needs to know.

Any way, congrats for coming out of it relatively unharmed!

[Black wallnut]

That's inappropriate IMO. Is helping rubbing salt in the wound? I am open to positive suggestions.

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Just to be clear it is not ok with you that Loring make such a comment and yet in Twistols thread about his oops your comment about holding your beer was appropriate? I think both comments were along the lines of laughing with the person not at the person. Just good natured humor.

I'm glad you got your problem resolved.

[cabinetman]

Just to be clear it is not ok with you that Loring make such a comment and yet in Twistols thread about his oops your comment about holding your beer was appropriate? I think both comments were along the lines of laughing with the person not at the person. Just good natured humor.

I'm glad you got your problem resolved.

The difference is in the ladder thread, it was taken as posted as a humor theme, unlike this thread. All the responses were humorously suggestive in that thread, unlike this thread. Laughing with me???

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[pelligrini]

I did think Lorings post was funny, but I also realize why cabinetman didn't at the time. The two threads are a bit different though.

After lorings post I wanted to post: "cabinetman, post your login and password for us so we can check it for you (since it seems most everyone else has it)."

I stopped using a lot of the 'remember password' tools in various programs and online websites a while ago. Mainly to keep me from forgetting them.

[radhak]

I too thought Loring was being funny, but also acknowledge that at that moment Cabman may not have found it so, seeing that he was stressing about a lost login and maybe hijacked computer/account.

Erik's post reminds me of a time long ago when I was part of a team running a web portal. One of those disasters happened, and we found that just the user-names - and nothing else - were wiped out of every user's profile (yeah, we were hand coding and managing stuff then). A bright young intern took it on himself to send out a notification to all users (around 2000 of them) that they'd need to re-create their profile; he did offer a consolation - if they could remember their old user-id and old password and other identifying data like phone number or street address, they wouldn't lose any of their preferences, etc.
His message ended with, "Please note - we know your passwords, and your address, so please rest assured your privacy will not be compromised"

Sorry to be off-topic, Cabman, but that sudden memory brought a chuckle back...

[Old Dutchman]

I have to go along with Mr. King! I made the mistake of doing a uninstall, and reinstall of Win. 7. I forgot about My other drives, except C: After trying to use Microsoft E-mail, I have had all kinds of problems with something quite similar. I usually find somewhere that I have unread E-mails. I have gotten some to share,in order too see what was happening. I tried Virus scans and am using Norton 360. Might find a similar problem! Wish You well!

[LCHIEN]

That's inappropriate IMO. Is helping rubbing salt in the wound? I am open to positive suggestions.

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I'm sorry you found it "Inappropriate".

You say you are open to positive suggestions. I did make what I thought was a carefully thought out and researched suggestion, about looking at the URL for foreign domains, very early in this thread, for which I received no thanks. It's post#6 in this thread if you care to look.

Those who know me know I have a sense of humor and am prone to making quips to keep the atmosphere here a bit fun and do not normally aim to offend.

I will remove the "Inappropriate" post.

To prevent you from being disturbed in the future I am adding you to my ignore list so I in the future I can neither make positive suggestions nor inappropriate comments to you.

[jackellis]

To avoid the problem of forgetting passwords, I use two strategies:

First, I try using a seemingly random string of numbers and characters I've somehow memorized that other people won't think of. I can attach extra characters to it if the web site requires passwords that meet a certain spec. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, wants between 8 and 12 characters with a number at the front and a special character somewhere in the string.

Second, I add them to my Outlook notes file, but I do not write them out in case my computer is lost, stolen or otherwise compromised. Instead, I use clues that mean something to me but will likely confuse an intruder or thief. I know what the clues mean but an intruder or a thief is going to have to work pretty hard to figure it out.

For me the harder problem is remembering the answers I provided to the security question used for password resets. Did I abbreviate the street name or not?

[woodturner]

Instead, I use clues that mean something to me but will likely confuse an intruder or thief. I know what the clues mean but an intruder or a thief is going to have to work pretty hard to figure it out.

Depending on the type of clues you use, it might be easier to discern than expected.

Research has shown that the human brain tends to "think" in certain ways. For example, we tend to think linearly - step by step - and have difficultly comprehending high dimension tasks - visualizing a 1,000 dimension subspace, programming 100 parallel tasks, etc. As a result, other people can tend to think in similar ways, which can make passwords easier to crack.

If the clues are completely random and unrelated, though, the approach works pretty well. For example, if you had nicknamed your first Camaro Josephine and that was unrelated to anything else in your life, using "Camaro" as a hint would prompt you for Josephine but not mean anything to anyone else. However, passwords based on English words are relatively easy to crack.

What certain individuals with certain groups have recommended to me is to use a physical object or the site name as a "key" to develop passwords with characters, numbers, and punctuation that don't form words. Essentially the goal is to develop a code that only you know. Since you know the code, you can easily figure out the password, but the actual password is very hard to crack.

As an example, suppose you wanted to make a password for bt3central. Suppose your code uses the 1, 3, 7 letters of the domain name in reverse order - t,3,b. Suppose you have also memorized a sequence of numbers and punctuation @1!2%5&4)7*2. Your password could intersperse the two: t@31b! That password would be difficult to crack. This is an example I just made up, not a real password, but the approach can be extended to form longer passwords.

On another note, after reading through the posts in this thread that aren't ignored, I am struck by the contrast in using tools. I hope most of us would not use a table saw without some basic understanding of safety equipment and how to use the tool. When the tool is a computer, though, people seem to just jump in without understanding proper use of the tool or using the safety equipment. I wonder why people seem to see these things differently?