Reply With QuoteI have several email addresses. Thankfully the only link I can find to any is a review I wrote on Amazon, hardly a secret. When you go to the review the address is not listed so how Google picked it up I have no idea.
Out of curiosity I just googled my email address to see what would come up. The first result was a Russian site which conveniently gave me both my email address and, worryingly, my password. Thankfully it's an out of date password but it still might be an idea for everyone to do the same just in case.
I have several email addresses. Thankfully the only link I can find to any is a review I wrote on Amazon, hardly a secret. When you go to the review the address is not listed so how Google picked it up I have no idea.
I would be scared if I was you, very scared.
I would check everything up to the point you changed your password, there is a very good chance that other older log ins, have been compromised, whatever you do, do not go over places where you used your old password and change it to the new one, as one of the sites is obviously compromised.
now would also be a good time to destroy anything shifty you might have on your hard drives, just saying....
this is not common, and I bet every single reply on here will say, they are fine.
Geez, that is worrying!
Just checked my most used yahoo email address and nothing found on Google.
I googled mine recently and found that some pri*ck had hacked my Netflix account and posted the user name and password on line.
I had closed the account 6 months previously so no damage done. Since then I have changed email addresses for all of my on line activities.
I am getting pretty "hacked" off with this on line chicanery to be honest.
I'm not overly concerned. The password is quite old, it was listed on the site in 2006, and it was never used as a password for anything else. As far as I can tell it hasn't been used for anything and anything serious would have come up by now. Just thought I would share to warn others.Originally Posted by soundood
Also worth checking on this...
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Thanks for the heads up and the link. Tried both the link and google and mine looks okay for now.
Like others, I do use internet security, but the worry is that sites you have joined up to or logged on to will sell the data to others. I know some sites can see your password.
This is usually a result of using the same password for your email address and for websites. Not a good idea, but people do it all the time. Don't do it! Even if you don't use strong passwords everywhere, the one single most important rule is to have a unique password for your email address.
Passwords that you use on websites either have been leaked already or will be leaked at some point in the future. Some of those leaks are made public. It's estimated that about 90% of leaks are not made public, but the passwords do trade on the black market. If someone gets hold of a leaked email/password combination, they will generally try things like accessing your email account, your PayPal account, and other common website accounts. They then may or may not proceed to do bad things. They might wait and do other, worse things later, if they think you are a high value target. In that case they will use the access they already have to get more information about you, and use that information against you for scams, blackmail, etc.
I don't have time to do the background checking on that one, but as a general rule it's also a good idea to be careful what details you give to sites like these. A lot of them are also fakes that are used for harvesting email addresses from the sort of people likely to fall for scams. Yes, even just giving out your email address to the wrong person can be a bad idea. Be even more careful with the "is my password in such-and-such leaked list" ones. Keep in mind that an attacker doesn't need to know your specific email and password combination. If they have both your email address and your password in separate lists, you could be in trouble even if they do not know which passwords match up with which email addresses.
+1. I wouldn't go near that link.
Nothing on the first 4 pages of google for any of my e-mail addy's. I'm lucky in that I have a namesake who works as a high profile investment banker. Search engines produce pages about him before they even notice me, if indeed they ever do.
Cheers for the heads up. . Just checked mine and seems ok for now..
Going to check now and again just incase.
I would never post a link i hadn't fully checked out.
It is in the latest edition of computer active and is fully legit.
Also, have you considered that in order for someone to email you, you have to... give them your email address? If you're going to keep it secret, there's not a lot of point having it.
Put your energy into choosing a better password instead (and using a password manager).
Yes, but try posting your email address in public places and see how much spam you get. I made this mistake years ago. There's a significant difference between that and giving your email address to people you trust. Plus there's the additional point that there are lots of email addresses floating around that have been harvested by various means, but an *active* email address is worth a lot more than one nobody uses or cares about.
yes this type of thing is fatal,
for sale bla bla, contact me on,
soundood@someemail.com
phone:071234123321
I have even seen this on this forum recently in SC, and yes I know SC is closed from the public, 1) you can see it on tapatalk, and 2) it can be seen by forum scrub software
Many thanks for the re-assurance - I still think it pays to be cautious.
It boils down to the basic sec hygiene, ie do not use the same password for your emails, forum log ins or God forbid banking, PP etc. Use at least three words (non dictionary) password which includes random numbers and capitals, and rotate it at least once a month. Utter PITA, but it's a brave new world we live in
Don't bother rotating passwords, there's very little benefit. That piece of advice just puts people off doing the stuff that actually does matter. Of course all the crappy IT admins that set up password expiry policies by default do not help the situation.
Some timely advice about password management from, believe it or not, GCHQ:
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...r_approach.pdf
It's actually aimed mostly at IT people, but it's got a lot of good, up-to-date advice in an easily understood format.
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