Filed under: Internet, Security, E-mail, Microsoft
Using Hotmail as a secondary address? Be very careful
If you're like me, you have at least two email addresses. One of these email addresses is for important business; you hand it out to co-workers, friends, and family, whose emails you actually want to pay regular attention to. The second email address is for other stuff, like signing up for newsletters, shopping online, or creating accounts for services on the web. Also, if you're like me, you might tend to forget to pay attention to that second email address for days, weeks, or months at a time. As it turns out, forgetting to check a free Windows Live Hotmail account might have some dire consequences.
According to the Windows Live help files:
Free Windows Live Hotmail accounts become inactive if you don't sign in for more than 270 days or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted. Incoming messages will be sent back to the sender as undeliverable. Your account name is still reserved. However, if the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted. If you don't use your Windows Live ID for 365 days, your Windows Live ID may be permanently deleted.What does this mean to someone who is using a Hotmail address to sign up for things on the web? It means that, once your year of inactivity has passed, anyone can sign up for a Windows Live account with your expired username. The unintentional side effect of this is that if your Windows Live account expires, one could potentially create an account with the same name and use the password reset function on almost any online service attached to that email address, receive the email with the password (or further instructions) and take over your account entirely without your knowledge. This very technique is how the personal accounts of Twitter employees were taken over by malicious users.
If you're a Windows Live Hotmail user, and you want to prevent this from happening, you need to do one of two things:
- Make absolutely sure you log into your account on a regular basis. Setting a weekly or monthly reminder on your calendar application of choice may aid you with this option.
- Get a different email account with another provider like Gmail, and change the email addresses on all of your online accounts.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vincent said 7:25PM on 7-29-2009
Yup, it happened to my dad. He used to work outside the city, and for that reason, could only access his emails on weekends. For some reason, he did not look at them for a long time, and gone they were...
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KeegdnaB said 8:52PM on 7-29-2009
I have 2 gmails, one that I use for general stuff and my primary google account, and one for personal/professional contacts. I have a hotmail (along with my original AOL account) that is at this point used for the soul purpose of redirecting spam.
Its a setup that I find works exceptionally
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mark said 9:05PM on 7-29-2009
hotmail has been like that for years. I forgot to log into mine a year or two ago, lost all my stuff but easily got the account back. but not to worry, I'm back up to storing ~150k spam messages (4.2gb).
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Drew Green said 9:10PM on 7-29-2009
I have a few Live/Hotmail accounts. I created a recurring appointment on my calendar for the last day of every month to remind me to sign into those accounts, that way they will never go inactive.
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davin.peterson said 9:56PM on 7-29-2009
I have a Gmail account and Hotmail & Live account. I use Gmail as my main account. I get so much junk email in my Hotmail that I use it only for junk. I also have an @live email account, which I don't use very much. I try to log in to it once a while, so I won't lose it.
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Ryan said 10:10PM on 7-29-2009
I have 5 gmails, 1 hotmail, and 1 yahoo. The latter are only for IM services and the Windows Live ID of course.
Does signing into my Hotmail IM network via Digsby constitute as a login? Hotmail was always slow, and you always got spammed by the Windows Live team and others which was annoying. Gmail FTW.
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Quikboy said 10:57PM on 7-29-2009
You can unsubscribe or even block Windows Live team updates (I find them just as annoying as Google's promotional stuff). It also helps to click 'junk' on junk e-mail.
As for slowness? Yeah, years ago it was. But it loads up pretty fast for me, though I do have a high speed connection.
I think people who still find Hotmail slow and spammy, need to try it again.
nikescar said 11:14PM on 7-29-2009
I have no problems with the speed of Hotmail/Live. I love the Windows Live Mail desktop app (I think of it as Outlook lite light slim mini).
The only addition I would like is to manually block junk mail using key words. Every so often this one same spammer gets through. Marking spam as "junk" works really well and usually means goodbye after one marking.
Quikboy said 10:54PM on 7-29-2009
You can't really fault too much on Microsoft - they're one of the most popular e-mail services around the world. They're can only be so much storage.
I have 5 Windows Live addresses, 1 Gmail, 2 Yahoo!, and 1 AOL.
WL Hotmail is my primary account, and I log in every day through Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live Mail to chat with friends or check e-mails. I just use Gmail if I have Gmail friends. Yahoo account is mostly for Yahoo! Answers and Flickr, and AOL is for the rare chance I feel like talking on AIM (not my favorite IM client).
I like Hotmail, and I don't have any junk mail issues (it helps if you click "Junk" on junk mail for future reference) and no speed issues either.
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Ryan said 11:19PM on 7-29-2009
It sounds like MS has become better, which is good. Gmail hasn't done anything bad to make me switch yet, nor have MS provided something revolutionary (like Google Wave, for instance). I'll probably keep my setup as is for now.
Ronald McDonald said 12:16AM on 7-30-2009
"anyone can sign up for a Windows Live account with your expired username"
Are you sure about that? As far as I know, most email services lock your account name because that would be a huge security hazard otherwise.
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Rocky said 12:54AM on 7-30-2009
No big epiphany here. Yahoo! email has been doing this for years as well.
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shibathedog said 1:10AM on 7-30-2009
Are you sure about that? Every website/service I have ever used when they delete an account you are unable to re-register it, It just becomes like a locked dummy account no one can get into or use. Why would MS make this mistake when no one else has? It seems pretty stupid of them.
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sitruc said 1:25AM on 7-30-2009
This seems like a great post about nothing. This has been around for years. Also, the twitter stuff wasn't technically "hacking."
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minibar said 1:56AM on 7-30-2009
i'm pretty sure Ronald McDonald (lol) has it right and the account is locked for some time period for security purposes. you can often recover the account but not the messages for quite some time beyond the contractual limit after the account expires due to inactivity. i link my hotmail accounts so it only takes a click or two to sign in.
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1ijack said 3:12AM on 7-30-2009
that happened to my mom also. i made a gmail account for her but her friends still uses the old email. so now i have to check her old reactivated email once or twice a month so that it wouldnt get deleted.
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Andrea said 3:17AM on 7-30-2009
I don't understand what the big deal is. Is it really that stupid that they cancel your account if you clearly are not interested in using it. I mean, a term of a year seems a pretty long period to me for a service that's offered 100% for free.
It's the same with web domains: if you fail to pay the hostingcompany they will eventually cancel the account and domainname, and it will instantly become available to others for registration.
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Quikboy said 5:17PM on 7-30-2009
Exactly! Microsoft is the #2 most popular e-mail service in the world, and I can't see why users that use the free version of Hotmail, expect Microsoft to bother with keeping old accounts alive if the users aren't checking into it much. It's not like Microsoft has infinite resources for users that barely use it.
If you're a busy person, then just find a friend or go to a library and just log-in and check your e-mail. If you wait for MONTHS to check e-mail, the contents are probably irrelevant at this point.
Niels van Dijk said 4:17AM on 7-30-2009
I used to use dodgeit.com for junk and stuff, but I think they're gone now..
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Tony said 5:44AM on 7-30-2009
Does this also happen to linked WL accounts. I have one main a/c and two a/cs that I use for singing up to offers.
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