Re:Yahoo discloses hack of 1B accounts
by mike_hearn on Thursday December 15, 2016 @04:32AM
(#13183445)
You reused the password on other websites, I'm guessing. Especially likely if it was a strong (i.e. hard to memorise) password.
The bulk hacking attacks that began around Spring 2010 hit all the big webmail providers. The source of the passwords was always, without fail, reversed hashes from breakins at other big websites:
https://googleblog.blogspot.ch/2013/02/an-update-on-our-war-...
Source: was a tech lead on the Google anti-hijacking team during this period.
Re:Yahoo discloses hack of 1B accounts
by alyandon on Thursday December 15, 2016 @09:53AM
(#13184921)
Nope, not password re-use either. I learned that lesson the hard way over a decade ago.
Regardless, it's something that has always continued to eat at me since I can't say for certain how it happened.
Regardless, it was some sort of automated spam/phishing emails that were sent from Yahoo's network using my account to contacts on my list. I analyzed the headers of multiple bounced messages that were sent to email addresses no longer in use and confirmed the origin of the traffic.
I'm not going to fall for a phishing attack and I only access email from devices I personally control. Could one of them had some sort of malware infection? I guess it is possible but I am security conscious and it is highly unlikely. I also would expect a hacker that has compromised one of my devices would be far more interested in using my banking credentials than using my Yahoo account to send spam.