email accounts hacked

i'd been working(developing websites) at the company i work for a lil' over 1 year (from the time of the companys inception) and it was really going pretty ok... i was having so much fun i'd call up my mum and tell her i'd be getting late(verrrrrry protective family i come from one of those "conservative" families) just so i could hang out longer with my "pals" at work unfortunately there are only like 3 to 4 girls working here and i'm like the only girl on the server side but it was cool in the beginning....eventually, lil' by lil' all of us started getting interested in the security of our 'puters and of course everyone got interested in hacking and everything to do with it... i thought it was all harmless of course :rolleyes: boy did i turn out to be wrong or what!!!!

Anyways getting to the point everyone was getting full of themselves trying to show off that they knew really cool stuff in hacking etcetera... then one day i found that i couldn't log on to my yahoo email account ( i assumed someone had put a key logger onto my 'puter and had managed to get my password) anyways i was jittered but managed to get access to my email account once more and then i changed the password put in on to a text file,zipped that textfile and gave the zipped file a 13 character password , put it on to a floppy so that whenever i wanted to put my password to check mail i wud put the floppy in to the drive and then type in the zip file password(which was copied and pasted) open the text file and copy the correct password from the text file and then paste it on the password box in the browser ( yes thats how paranoid i became!!! pathetic i know!!!) and i dont know how maybe this guy saw me copying and pasting my password and manged to figure out my password or something coz he managed to hack into it again and had put utter filth and profanity (so profane it wud put marilyn manson to shame!) and if that wasn't enough adding insult to injury he made it so that i cudn't even go thru the secret question thingy by changing the country and stuff so that there was absolutely no possible way for me to get back to it.

anyways as u can imagine i got thoroughly PISSED so i went upto my boss and complained and gave in my resignation( yes childish, yes immature but thats how hurt and mad i was - i mean this guy i thought was my friend!!) and it worked i got a guarantee that i wud never have this problem again and i was asked to stay and so i was ok(not satisfied just ok).

i dont even know why i'm putting this on the forum just thought i shud. i feel hacking is ok as long as it's harmless i mean to check the security of a system etcetera but u step on ppl's toes(especially mine :p) ppl obviously get pissed and u cant blame them for their reactions!

urm... somehow i get the feeling this post is a wee bit long ;)

Any comments u guys?

ciao...

I dont really see waht this has to do with security (apart from maybe check your computer for keyloggers and keep your password safe). and why did you start about you and your friends got into hacking and finish off buy saying your boss wanted you to stay? o must have missed a bit or your posts are even worse than mine.

Nice story, And I see that you may be making a point about the emotional cost of some Cracking and the malicious use of those skills..

Now Was there a question in there that I missed.. ?

Cheers

This is general chit chat, so its allowed.

Anyway, it probably wasn't a keystroke logger, considereing he is on your same network. There are a few different possibilites though.

1> He logged your keystrokes the first time you entered the password, when you signed up for the account..

2> He is running a screen capture program also, so every time you open the zip file and you password shows up in plain text, he gets a picture of it.

3> He is running a sniffer on the network somewhere. I don't use yahoo mail, so I don't know about any encryption being used for the login....

Anyway, you did make a very good point. Hacking/cracking/whatever you want to call it can be fun, but no one ever thinks about the people they are really hurting... You can say, wohoo, I just took down ebay, but I know people that make their living off of ebay.

You´re right again, souleman.
But I think that first they started "playing", then the thing got "too far".
Those things happen... it´s the same that when you start to date with a guy, maybe he thinks you are easy... and things can get a little under control.

But let's relax. Real h4><ors now where it´s too much.
I mean, it´s okay a little fun, but enough is enough.

sweetie, I think you did the correct thing by telling your boss.
I he had been a real hacker, you wouldn´t have even noticed ;)

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I he had been a real hacker, you wouldn´t have even noticed

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not always true...in fact i am indebted to a hacker by the name of valkyrie who many years ago...left a note on one of the desktops here at work which basically said...hey your fly is open...thought you'd like to know...well...it was frightening....and a hell of a shock but it was what started my interest in security...

GETTING A FIREWALL

zigar> Your shirt is buttoned sideways ;)

Wouldn't it have been more of a wise idea to encrypt the file on the floppy with your pwd on it, instead of zipping it? It is much easier to crack open a zip file than it is to crack a properly encrypted file, sometimes impossible. Anyways, if you kept the disk with you at all times I suppose it wouldn't really matter...

pranKster

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Originally posted here by zigar



not always true...in fact i am indebted to a hacker by the name of valkyrie who many years ago...left a note on one of the desktops here at work which basically said...hey your fly is open...thought you'd like to know...well...it was frightening....and a hell of a shock but it was what started my interest in security...

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Something like that happened to me also. It was more like a friend, who was quite a bit more experienced with computers than i was at the time (1998) had me play a nice little game called. Whackamole. To say the least, after i found out it was him, i delved into computer security to make sure it never happened again. Which it hasn't.

Chances are the guy is a script kiddie with jokes or something in mind. If he got a hold of the floppy he could of used a zip cracker.

ok, first it was the rash of people saying 'teach me how to hack' now its everyone saying 'this is my life'...... ok its not them im complaining about, its the next person that always gets on and complains that there life isnt related to the site....... it just drives me nuts! i think that there should be an amendment to the FAQ....... something to the tune of 'in the general chit chat forum anything goes' hmmmmmm now if only people would actualy READ the FAQ....

moving on from my bad sugestions......

well what i wanna know is if you got your yahoo email account back and cornered the guy that did it........ did you know who did it? did they get busted up over it?

some points i may have failed to mention -

-> I always had my diskette with me i was a verrrry paranoid person at the time coz i know these guys, their jokes can get a lil' out of hand so i tried to be careful
-> And no he didn't get busted(he was just sorta told off - thats it!!)
-> i had signed up for the account long before i started work
-> and i'm fairly sure he got it from keylogger but i still cant figure out how he got it the second time maybe it was a screen capture program like souleman says who knows...
-> and yes i've now put a firewall

If you're using 2K/XP, press Ctrl+Alt+Del and go into the Processes tab. That shows every single process running using your account (yes even hidden ones). If you're using Win 9x/Me, then you'll have to get a third party program that does the same thing. That way, you can kill any process that looks suspicious. The worst you can do by killing the wrong process is to cause your computer to crash so try it.
Cheers,
cgkanchi