Security Issue -

[Anonymous]

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:

[Anonymous]

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.

[sheepdog]

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

[Anonymous]

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...

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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.