topic Re: Security Issue - in Discussions & Feedback

Security Issue -

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:34:55 GMT

I have today received a spam email on an email address I only use on these forums. This makes me think that the forums have been compromised and that there maybe a data protection issue :mansurprised:
My forum email address is the format NAMEnnnnn@domain_name Where NAME is an alphabetic name and nnnnn is a 5 digit random number - I can therefore be pretty sure of the source
As a general point, I receive very little spam and when I do it is easy to see where it has come from - in the past when this has happened it is normally because a server has been hacked.
Of course, I don't discount the possibility that the issue is at my end but I think it is unlikely as I would then be expecting to get a lot more spam emails on different accounts.
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed a problem :robotindifferent:

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:56:15 GMT

To my knowledge forums are a likely place for your email address to get known.
I have had 3 emails addresses compromised on 3 different forums.

Re: Security Issue -

sheepdog — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:00:51 GMT

Nope: never get spam from here. As for data protection, the online billing of the main o2 website is distinct from these forums.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 18:48:18 GMT

I have today received a spam email on an email address I only use on these forums. This makes me think that the forums have been compromised and that there maybe a data protection issue :mansurprised:
...
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed a problem :robotindifferent:

Yes, exactly the same here. I changed my email address on this forum a couple of years ago, after I started getting spammed to an old address which, like you, I used only on this forum. This morning, I'm getting spammed at not only the old address but also the new one as well. Clearly no serious security in place on these forums at all. Shocking.
I raised it back in 2009 but all it attracted was the attention of the usual "oh, that must be a coincidence" brigade. Sadly nobody at O2 seems terribly interested or bothered about it...

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:18:29 GMT

Your email address could be picked up from many sources, for example, if you send an email to a friend and they forward it on and your addy is still on there, the receiving person has malware on, your pc has malware on, lots of possibilities, the net is an OPEN place, there is no encrypition out there so it could have been plucked out of anywhere.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:14:30 GMT

Your email address could be picked up from many sources, for example, if you send an email to a friend and they forward it on and your addy is still on there, the receiving person has malware on, your pc has malware on, lots of possibilities, the net is an OPEN place, there is no encrypition out there so it could have been plucked out of anywhere.

Can you tell me how anyone could "pick up" an email address which I've only ever used on this forum, from anywhere except this forum?
I don't email my friends using an email address like "antishereO2forumsJAN2009@mydomain" - yet it's an address like that which is now suddenly getting spam.
Face the facts. There is obviously a problem here which has not gone away in the 2+ years that people have been ignoring it.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:04:19 GMT

You should see what goes on out there in the internet, trust me if you did you wouldnt want to send anything over it again 😮
Ive also never had spam on this email account, I would look at your personal security on your pc or websites you visit, like I said, the internet is OPEN and everything is readable if you know how! (and its not too hard, lots of tools out there that are free for you to use!)
Tony

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:16:27 GMT

Ive also never had spam on this email account, I would look at your personal security on your pc or websites you visit, like I said, the internet is OPEN and everything is readable if you know how! (and its not too hard, lots of tools out there that are free for you to use!)

Jolly good. So I and the other people who've had spam directed to O2 forum-specific email addresses are just making it up then? Or it's just some terrible coincidence and all our machines are lacking in security?
Nope, don't buy it. Not for a second. It's obvious what has happened - not just once, but repeatedly.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:17:31 GMT

Well it seems your security may not be up to standard then, ive been floating about for some time and ive not had any spam on this email address I use, damn I must be immune or im doing something different to you? and I dont even get the viagra spams coming through (not that I need it ) so either your computer security isnt up to scratch or you have gone onto a dodgy website and all that info can be taken from your PC.
Tony

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:50:40 GMT

Well it seems your security may not be up to standard then, ive been floating about for some time and ive not had any spam on this email address I use, damn I must be immune or im doing something different to you?

Well I've been on this forum rather longer than you have, old chum, and once again I'll be terribly entertained to learn how you think an email address only used to register on this forum (and not stored ANYWHERE on my computer) can somehow be obtained from my machine. Your technical knowledge does not pass muster.
You've not had any spam? Good for you. You're probably using a spam blocker too, which would of course hide the problem so that you wouldn't see it. Did you even register on this forum with an email address used only here and nowhere else, so you'd be in an informed position to identify where any breach occured? No, I didn't think so.
Why do you think this forum no longer lets you change your email address? It used to be possible - but as a relative newcomer you probably never realised this forum used to have that option before the first hack.
Websites forums get hacked all the time. Look at Money Saving Expert. There were a whole load of people like you pretending that there was no problem until eventually the situation became impossible to ignore. You can nay-say all you want, there is clearly a security issue here. Please don't pretend that you know what you're talking about until you actually do.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:27:27 GMT

Why do you think this forum no longer lets you change your email address? It used to be possible - but as a relative newcomer you probably never realised this forum used to have that option before the first hack.

It does. Profile > Edit account settings lets you change your email address exactly as you'd expect it to.

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:55:15 GMT

Well I've been on this forum rather longer than you have, old chum, and once again I'll be terribly entertained to learn how you think an email address only used to register on this forum (and not stored ANYWHERE on my computer) can somehow be obtained from my machine. Your technical knowledge does not pass muster.

So your email address for this forum is not stored ANYWHERE on your pc?
That email address would be stored on your PC, thats your first mistake..

Websites forums get hacked all the time. Look at Money Saving Expert. There were a whole load of people like you pretending that there was no problem until eventually the situation became impossible to ignore. You can nay-say all you want, there is clearly a security issue here. Please don't pretend that you know what you're talking about until you actually do.

Oh i agree that websites do get hacked, but the biggest issue is people at the other end of the chain, more of those are more likely to have a breach of security on their pc than a website getting hacked, and please dont try to insult my intelligence, if you think your pc holds no personal information you really need to wake up and smell the coffee :mansurprised:
And yes I have anti spam on my mail accounts, but it still lets me see what has come in (it marks spam to its own folder), and ive had zero on this account
Tony

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:45:25 GMT

It does. Profile > Edit account settings lets you change your email address exactly as you'd expect it to.

Oops, I stand corrected. I spent ages looking for that and couldn't find it, and there did seem to be other posts on the board confirming that it wasn't possible to change an email address. Glad to be put right!

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 10:54:13 GMT

So your email address for this forum is not stored ANYWHERE on your pc? That email address would be stored on your PC, thats your first mistake..

Well (1) What makes you think I even own a PC? There are lots of other devices which can access the internet, including, as you might expect from this forum, mobile phones. What makes you think that I registered for this forum using a PC? It's quite possible - when you think about it - to register with a web forum using an email address which never goes anywhere near a PC.

Oh i agree that websites do get hacked, but the biggest issue is people at the other end of the chain, more of those are more likely to have a breach of security on their pc than a website getting hacked, and please dont try to insult my intelligence, if you think your pc holds no personal information you really need to wake up and smell the coffee :mansurprised:

Like I said, it would be helpful for you to know what you were talking about before making pronouncements.
Quite aside from anything else, if, as you claim, these breaches could only have been on individuals' PCs, how is it that those individuals only get spam to the email address they used to register with the O2 forums? How is it that no OTHER addresses which they used to register with OTHER sites, are being similarly misused? Are you suggesting that there is some special breed of malware which psychically analyses people's computers and only takes email addresses used for O2 forum registration, while discarding ALL the other ones?
It takes less than a second of considered thought to realise that your preferred suggestion is simply not plausible. Why not read this thread from the last time it happened?
"Phishing Emails using O2 Email Address"
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12823
Or this one?
"Beware - spammers have the email address I gave O2"
viewtopic.php?t=12830

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:21:42 GMT

We could go on like this forever, you even dismissed a security expert who ensured there was no breach on the O2 server, that leaves the end user, i.e. you.
If you want a list of things you can do to prevent malware or security issues, then all you have to do is search the internet, ensure your internet explorer/Firefox/Google chrome etc are all up to date along with any other specific security software, don’t use "free" antivirus type software (especially the type from U torrent sites), then there are all the issues with using unencrypted wifi etc, it’s an endless list, keep the kids off the pc etc, BUT the big point is that if there was a security breach, everyone would suffer, not just a few (and it would have been noticed!)

Re: Security Issue -

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:10:21 GMT

Your argument doesn't hold water and you're clearly just trolling. There is no way that numerous people who registered on this forum using a unique email address used here and nowhere else, would each start getting spam email sent to those addresses by accident or coincidence.
Ignore the obvious all you like. You just can't convince some people.