Accessing Hijacked email accounts

[Guilherme Roschke]

Cyberians,

I've been contacted by someone seeking help with the following
situation. She has email accounts at yahoo and hotmail that have been
hijacked by someone who has obtained the passwords, possibly via spyware
on her computer.

This looks like an obvious case for unathorized access under 18 USC
2701.  But more pragmatically, how would one gain control back of these
accounts short of litigation? Anyone have  practical experience?

Thanks,

Guilherme

--
Guilherme Roschke
Skadden Fellow
Domestic Violence and Privacy Project
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/
[phone] x124


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[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, Guilherme Roschke wrote:
> I've been contacted by someone seeking help with the following
> situation. She has email accounts at yahoo and hotmail that have been
> hijacked by someone who has obtained the passwords, possibly via spyware
> on her computer.
>
> This looks like an obvious case for unathorized access under 18 USC
> 2701.  But more pragmatically, how would one gain control back of these
> accounts short of litigation? Anyone have  practical experience?

Oh, and I forgot.  She should probably first make sure her computer is
clean, otherwise going through the recovery process on an infected
computer will compromise the account again.


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[Alexander Muentz]

Guilherme Roschke wrote:

> Cyberians,
>
> I've been contacted by someone seeking help with the following
> situation. She has email accounts at yahoo and hotmail that have been
> hijacked by someone who has obtained the passwords, possibly via spyware
> on her computer.
>
> This looks like an obvious case for unathorized access under 18 USC
> 2701.  But more pragmatically, how would one gain control back of these
> accounts short of litigation? Anyone have  practical experience?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Guilherme
>
>  

First off, I'd suggest she contact Yahoo! and Hotmail to ask for the
accounts to be frozen. There may be some way (secret questions & the
like) that she can use to authenticate herself as the original owner.

I've not dealt with the large free email providers on this, but I have
been in the admin's position when a customer asks to have their hijacked
account secured and returned to them. Acting in a polite, reasonable
manner goes pretty far in my book.


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[Twister (Bettina Winsemann)]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:39:43 -0400
Alexander Muentz <lex@...> wrote:

> First off, I'd suggest she contact Yahoo! and Hotmail to ask
> for the accounts to be frozen. There may be some way (secret
> questions & the like) that she can use to authenticate
> herself as the original owner.

The problem is that if the account was infiltrated, the secret
question etc. is probably already changed.
If the questions about name, adress etc. have not been
answered correctly there will be some problems to say the
least.

But the best is to contact the help desk and explain the
situation, furthermore contact all the friends etc. who have
the adresses (or at least as much as possible) because this
avoids any more mail adresses etc. to be infiltrated or
private information to go into the wrong hands.


> I've not dealt with the large free email providers on this,
> but I have been in the admin's position when a customer asks
> to have their hijacked account secured and returned to them.
> Acting in a polite, reasonable manner goes pretty far in my
> book.

The main problem is the authentification as in most cases the
secret question has been changed. But if you are able to say
roundabout when the account has been hacked freemailers help
desk most likely can see that what you say is for real and
will freeze the account and (for example if your address was
given at first) send an authentification letter to the adress
or something like that.


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[Randall-12]

On Sep 18, 2007, at 5:51 PM, Guilherme Roschke wrote:

> Cyberians,
>
> I've been contacted by someone seeking help with the following
> situation. She has email accounts at yahoo and hotmail that have been
> hijacked by someone who has obtained the passwords, possibly via  
> spyware
> on her computer.
>
> This looks like an obvious case for unathorized access under 18 USC
> 2701.  But more pragmatically, how would one gain control back of  
> these
> accounts short of litigation? Anyone have  practical experience?

Haven't read the replies yet - but don't those accounts have a button  
that says "Forgot password?"

Clicking those links will, I presume, send a "reset password" link  
the the email address which the account holder used to register the  
accounts originally.


My Original Writing blog: http://itgotworse.livedigital.com


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[Roland Perry-2]

In message <0BC0157B-AD57-4A47-B7C8-9FAC4CE32AD0@...>, at
02:40:58 on Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Randall <rvh40@...> writes
>Haven't read the replies yet - but don't those accounts have a button
>that says "Forgot password?"
>
>Clicking those links will, I presume, send a "reset password" link  the
>the email address which the account holder used to register the
>accounts originally.

I would expect it to send the email to a currently associated email
account, otherwise it could easily be sending to an email address that
has itself been cancelled. And the hijacker may have changed the
associated email address to one he has access to.
--
Roland Perry


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[Guilherme Roschke]

Roland Perry wrote:

> In message <0BC0157B-AD57-4A47-B7C8-9FAC4CE32AD0@...>, at
> 02:40:58 on Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Randall <rvh40@...> writes
>> Haven't read the replies yet - but don't those accounts have a button
>> that says "Forgot password?"
>>
>> Clicking those links will, I presume, send a "reset password" link
>> the the email address which the account holder used to register the
>> accounts originally.
>
> I would expect it to send the email to a currently associated email
> account, otherwise it could easily be sending to an email address that
> has itself been cancelled. And the hijacker may have changed the
> associated email address to one he has access to.

Indeed. It was my mistake to not mention this earlier. We have attempted
the standard "forgot your password" links.

-gr

Guilherme Roschke
Skadden Fellow
Domestic Violence and Privacy Project
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/
[phone] x124


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[Newman, Anne D.]

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-----Original Message-----
From: Law & Policy of Computer Communications
[mailto:CYBERIA-L@...] On Behalf Of Guilherme Roschke
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 10:02 PM
To: CYBERIA-L@...
Subject: Re: [CYBERIA] Accessing Hijacked email accounts

Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <0BC0157B-AD57-4A47-B7C8-9FAC4CE32AD0@...>, at
> 02:40:58 on Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Randall <rvh40@...> writes
>> Haven't read the replies yet - but don't those accounts have a button

>> that says "Forgot password?"
>>
>> Clicking those links will, I presume, send a "reset password" link
>> the the email address which the account holder used to register the
>> accounts originally.
>
> I would expect it to send the email to a currently associated email
> account, otherwise it could easily be sending to an email address that

> has itself been cancelled. And the hijacker may have changed the
> associated email address to one he has access to.

Indeed. It was my mistake to not mention this earlier. We have attempted
the standard "forgot your password" links.

-gr

Guilherme Roschke
Skadden Fellow
Domestic Violence and Privacy Project
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/
[phone] x124


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