Gaining Info On Tech Execs With Just Their Email

jfruh writes "Did you know that Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has a loyalty points account with the Starwood hotel chain? Did you know that both Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer have Dropbox accounts? All this information — and much more — can be found out because so many prominent executives use their corporate email address for their account logins, and most sites make it possible to see if an email address is associated with an account even if you don't have the account password. Just knowing that such an account exists can lead to technical and social engineering attempts to crack it, as happened in the case of Wired's Mat Honan."

Comments

Re:Hate using my Email address as log in

[History's Coming To]

They've got very good security - when I tried to contact them regarding something they refused to talk to me because I "gave the wrong date of birth". I used the Data Protection Act (UK) to get all the information they hold on me, and the date of birth was correct. So they wouldn't talk to me even though I had the right details, now that's what I call social engineering secure.