Microsoft today confirmed that the personal details of up to 10,000 Hotmail users were acquired during a recent phishing attack.
Users of Microsoft’s online e-mail service have been advised to change their security settings after user passwords were posted on pastebin.com on October 1st.
Technology blog neowin.net said yesterday that an anonymous users had published the details online and that the information was genuine.
“Phishing” is a situation in which e-mails are written in the style of a legitimate message and sent to individuals in an attempt to gather personal information from them which is then used it for fraudulent purposes.
In a statement issued today Microsoft said none of its servers were hacked as had been reported in some early media reports on the matter.
The company said that on learning of the phishing incident it had immediately moved to ensure that customers’ details were removed from the website they were on and had launched an investigation to uncover how the incident had occurred.
“Microsoft is taking measures to block access to all of the accounts that were exposed and have resources in place to help those users reclaim their accounts,” the firm said.
