HotMail and FaceBook compromised

HotMail: If you have a hotmail account, please go there now and change your password. Thousands of hotmail passwords have been farmed. Here’s now:

<copied from ask-leo.com> First login to your Windows Live Hotmail account, and then click the Options link in the upper right:

And then at the bottom of the resulting list, click on More options...:

On the resulting page, click on View and edit your personal information:

At this point you may be prompted to re-enter your password. This is a security measure to prevent just anyone from walking up to your computer and changing your information.

There's something interesting to note about the screen that you land on:

"When you change your password for Windows Live Hotmail, you're also changing it for all your Windows Live based services."

Note that it stopped talking about Hotmail. This is your Windows Live account.

Why does that matter?

Because your Windows Live account is used for all Windows Live services including Hotmail, Messenger Spaces and more. When you change your password for Windows Live Hotmail, you're also changing it for all your Windows Live based services.

Near the center of that page you'll see a section labeled Password reset information:

Click on Change on the Password: line and you'll get this box:

Naturally you must type in your old password in order to prove that you are who you say you are and are authorized to make changes.

As you type your new password the new Password Strength indicator will show you just how strong your password is. Having a strong password that's difficult to guess is incredibly important to the security of your account. Make sure you always have a strong password.

As an additional security measure you can instruct Windows Live to automatically require you to change your password every so often. While this can be seen as annoying, it's actually another layer of security to protect your account from theft.

Click on Save and you're done.

Facebook: is having a different problem all together. Facebook is popping up with rogue anti-virus warning and installations. This means you don’t have a virus --- the warning message is the virus. If you follow through, then you will have a virus. In this scenario, the vector is yet unknown but the infection is happening. Meaning we can’t yet say how you got it, you just did.

You will notice a weight loss post to the notes or wall section of your facebook page. The text will look something like this:

Wow, this woman’s story has inspired me to lose weight facebookhealth4.com

I stumbled across this woman’s weight loss blog today, really interesting facebookhealth5.com

These things must work well for losing weight, check out this woman’s blog and what she did facebookhealth4.com

Once you visit the included link a pop-up will occur telling you that you have a virus and need to clean it – click here. Don’t do that, that is the virus asking you to install it.

If you see any such post you should delete the item from your Wall or Notes immediately.

Be careful out there. These things come in waves and it that we another one has rolled in.

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Harbor Computer Services provides IT services to businesses in Southeastern Michigan. Find out more about us www.harborcomputerservices.net