Help Urgently Needed

Peyton Manning

Im hoping someone who knows a bit about computers can help me.

About an hour ago I got an email from a strange email address from someone by the name of Chris Ericson, and in it, he had listed all my girlfriend's passwords to various accounts, such as MSN, Hotmail, Bebo, MySpace etc. It wasnt an automatic message either, it was typed in a way that I knew someone typed it off the top of their head. Like this.

here is XXXX's passwords (XXXX = my girlfriends name, dont want to say it here)

bebo - password
myspace - password
hotmail - password
msn - password

How could this have happened? I assume its someone she knew as why else would they send it to me? She has emails with credit card transaction confirmation messages but none of these have the credit card number or any credit card details, so is the credit card safe?

I rand my girlfriend straight away, she was at the airport getting ready to fly out so she said just change all her passwords for her. Obviously we're quite shocked, is there anyway we can trace the location of the email address?

Any help appreciated as this has invaded our privacy very much.

Thanks boardsies.

Wertz

Chances are he/she has already changed the pwords...

Is there anything work related or important on the PC she uses or on the home network? There are instances where hackers use either a key logger or hack your wifi to get access to a machine, then lock your files and demand a "ransom" to give you back ownership.
I'm not saying that that's what happened here, but if there is sensitive stuff on the PC(s) then check your security

As for tracing email? can't really be done can it? Suppose you could get the location of the mail server but as for narrowing it down to an address, pretty near impossible.

One question on this whole thing...why email you? Why not her? Are you sure it's not someone who would have the pwords and wants you to read something in her mail/bebo/whatever for some reason?

6th

Wertz wrote:

One question on this whole thing...why email you? Why not her? Are you sure it's not someone who would have the pwords and wants you to read something in her mail/bebo/whatever for some reason?

Thats what I am thinking.

Anyway, did you manage to resis reading all her mail? If you read it I predict a PI thread in the near future!

6th

This could also be one of the most elaborate "Hey, I've got a girlfriend" threads

Peyton Manning

Everything seems to be normal. Heres what happened.

Got a random email address listing the passwords, as mentioned above. I emailed back asking who this was and where they got this information. Then they replied saying "no dont worry. no damage done" and thats it, havent gotten any replies since.

I doubt it if its someone who wants me read stuff in her mail/bebo because I know she has nothing to hide, and she even told me to go into her accounts and change her passwords for her so thats not the issue at all but thanks for the concern, I understand where u are coming from.

And as I said, I successfully changed the passwords having to first key in the old password, so they werent changed.

Im guessing that since I changed the passwords for her on MY labtop, and assuming she doesnt use any of these from her laptop until its safe, this person wont have access to those passwords?

And what programs are best to help me prevent this from happening? Her Norton Anti-Virus subscription ran out a couple of weeks ago but she has downloaded the free AVG Anti Virus..

Rabies

/looks at Karoma

<_<

I remember......

Peyton Manning

and no 6th, I didnt read her emails lol. Like I said, I trust her completely and I know theres nothing suspicious at work - my brother tells me its probably a trojan virus or something that records entered information?

humbert

does hotmail use ssl for loging in? Most likely a keylogger on her computer and maybe some script kiddie showing off.

Ruu_Old

You can login more securely with Hotmail (under advanced security which brings up SSL) I think but the default is a standard security. Grab some anti spyware/malware apps like Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy or AVG Anti-spyware and give the machine the once over. Get a firewall also, Comodo is good and free.

Wertz

Security? Any half decent firewall and a virus scan every week should keep away most crap. If you use a wifi network then turn on the highest encryption you have.

Peyton Manning

Whats really getting to me is something I suppose you cant help me with and thats why it was email to me of all people? Would I be right in presuming that its someone who knows her if they managed to pick me out of all her contacts?

humbert

could they not tell from her emails?

Frank Grimes

humbert wrote:

could they not tell from her emails?

Probably that and the fact that her bebo page has him listed as her other half. Assuming that it is his bebo page that's linked in his sig.

Pherekydes

Archimedes wrote:

Whats really getting to me is something I suppose you cant help me with and thats why it was email to me of all people? Would I be right in presuming that its someone who knows her if they managed to pick me out of all her contacts?

Maybe it's her new boyfriend.

Sorry, just thinking out loud.

Asok

She probably left herself logged into her e-mail in a net cafe and wandered off.

humbert

would still be hard to get all her passwords I think

Wertz

Asok wrote:

She probably left herself logged into her e-mail in a net cafe and wandered off.

Good call....probably at whatever airport she's at...

humbert

By the way if there was credit card information that would allow someone to make purchases on the card it would probably be wise to report them stolen and get new ones.

Peyton Manning

Well its not from an internet cafe. I can only assume that it was during the period between the time that her antivirus ran out and time she got a new one. I'll get her to run Ad Aware and a Virus Check to eliminate it - would that do the job?

greenkittie

hot girlfriend

humanji

Tell her to be a little more careful when entering all her passwords. Would it be worth giving the email address to the cops? It's a safe bet that you were sent the email simply because the guy wanted to show off.

Peyton Manning

humanji wrote:

Tell her to be a little more careful when entering all her passwords. Would it be worth giving the email address to the cops? It's a safe bet that you were sent the email simply because the guy wanted to show off.

Thats what Im thinking. I know its early days yet, but seeing as there is no credit card information (i.e number, sort code, expiry date or anything like that at all etc.) in her inbox, and the fact that I have changed the passwords for her and nothing malicious has been done, perhaps whoever it was, was just giving us a scare? Ill make sure that plenty of anti spyware and virus software are run before its used again, that shud fix the problem. Thanks folks, just got quite a shock is all!

humanji

Remeber though, once you run the anti spyware stuff (and I'd recommend getting a friend who really knows there stuff, just to be safe. They may know things you don't about finding malicious software) change all the passwords again. If the guy had a key-logger (software that remembers the keys that are typed when you're entering a passowrd etc) thenit may have remebered the passwords you've just changed to.

Karoma

Rabies wrote:

/looks at Karoma

<_<

I remember......

"fuckoff"

Zillah

Hackers have a long tradition of breaking into something and then emailing the person in charge saying "I hacked your Gibson, I used the following methods. You might want to change those. Sincerely, your friendly local greyhat."

Its the fun of compromising security rather than actually taking advantage of it.

seamus

There's also a chance, maybe, just maybe that she has at some point or another put all of her password into a text file and saved it onto a machine or emailed it to herself...