Comcast Freezes Accounts After Thousands of User Passwords Found Online
Comcast Freezes Accounts After Thousands of User Passwords Found Online
Posted 03/17/2009 at 11:54am
| by Andy Salisbury
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Comcast has frozen more than 8,000 users names and passwords for Comcast email addresses, a full two months after they were uncovered on the document-sharing site, Scribd.
Scribd reportedly has removed the list thanks mostly to The New York Times’ Brad Stone, who told them once he caught wind of the matter. Stone, who was contacted by one of the customers on the list, writes, “The list on Scribd was one of four results, and it also included his password, which was a riff on his love for a local sports team. Statistics on Scribd indicated that the list, which was uploaded by someone with the user name vuthanhan2004, had been viewed over 345 times and had been downloaded 27 times.”
Comcast claims that the accounts information ended up on the list through a series of phishing attacks on users, and that it wasn’t an internal leak.
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agello24
March 26, 2009 at 9:02am
Almost every company that uses password and login id, tell you that they will never email you and ask you to change your information. That means their are more than the 8k people who fell for the phisher trick. SAD!
unixfool
March 18, 2009 at 4:36am
I don't even think this is a 'pissed off hackers' issue. I also believe the proper term is 'cracker'. A cracker is just like any other citizen...they don't like the ISP service, buy or steal a new one.
To me, that meant 8,000 accounts that were susceptible to spam abuse. As spam is a big issue, that should've gotten nailed as soon as it was discovered...no idea why they sat so long on it.
IMO, this was more than likely someone (one or several people working together) who was harvesting a huge pool of spam hosts.
mojosico
March 17, 2009 at 7:51pm
comcast cant say they did not see this one comming . piss off the hackers and reap the bounty . glad im not a comcast subscriber . hehehe!!!!!!!!!!!
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