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Reports are surfacing that the phishing attacks targeted at Hotmail users which first surfaced yesterday have ensnared users of Google, Yahoo and AOL's webmail services.
According to the BBC, Google has confirmed that users of its Gmail service have fallen victim to the phishing scam, which was first brought to light when compromised Hotmail user name and account details were posted to developer web site Pastebin.
Since then details of more than 30,000 names and passwords have been posted online, the Beeb said. V3 is still awaiting confirmation from official sources of the scale of the problem, although it's believed many of the details are from old or unused accounts.
It also appears as if the likes of Google have responded fairly swiftly to reset passwords on the affected accounts.
Paul Hanley from Deloitte's Security and Privacy team argued that phishing email account details is an increasingly popular way for hackers to gain entry into more lucrative accounts, which may share the same credentials.
"It's important that organisations with an online presence continue to raise customer awareness regarding the dangers of phishing, opening unsolicited attachments/links and sharing passwords across accounts," he added. "They also need to continue to respond promptly to incidents such as this one when they occur."
06 Oct 2009
