Yesterday there were reports that 10,000 + Hotmail accounts were compromised when the details of user name & passwords are published online. I was not concerned about the report as my Hotmail account is very less relevant to my everyday digital life.
But today when BBC reported that another 20,000 GMail, Yahoo and AOL accounts are also compromised then the panic started. I immediately changed the password of all my mail services just as a precautionary measure. As per the BBC report there are close to 30K+ email accounts that are compromised.
The compromised accounts are known to be victims of phishing scams that lure users with fake websites to reveal their passwords.
Google already taken action on the compromised GMail accounts by forcing them to reset the passwords. They also stressed that there is no breach in the security of GMail system and the compromised accounts are victims of phishing websites.
Are you worried? Remember to change your passwords often, choose strong passwords, never leave your computer unlocked and don’t use same password for all your web accounts.
cc image credit: flickr