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Ask Slashdot: Identity Theft Attempt In Progress; How To Respond?

Posted by timothy on from the burrs-on-the-heel-of-the-foot-would-be-mercy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It appears that two weeks ago my email address got into the wrong database. Since that time there have been continuing attempts to access my accounts and create new accounts in my name. I have received emails asking me to click the link below to confirm I want to create an account with Twitter, Facebook, Apple Games Center, Facebook mobile account, and numerous pornographic sites. I have not attempted to create accounts on any of these services. I have also received 16 notices from Apple about how to reset my Apple ID. I am guessing these notices are being automatically generated in response to too many failed login attempts. At this point I have no reason to believe any of my accounts have been compromised but I see no good response."

3 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. did you change your email password? by alen · · Score: 5, Informative

    to something not in the dictionary?

    after that i would just ignore the failed attempts. after a while the perp will stop and move on to easier prey

  2. Re:Change your e-mail address by Bearhouse · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indeed. Keep the old ones, of course, but change the passwords to something very, very secure and different for each one.
    Backup then delete all information associated in the Cloud with these addresses, (Android, iCloud, Gdrive...)

    Do not reuse any of the old accounts for anything. Use a "one-time" account for verification each of the new accounts, then nuke it and change to a new one.
    Do not be tempted to have one master account for verification of all the child ones.
    If you're using gmail, or similar, do NOT use some variation of your name, home town, company, whatever.

    Finally, pony up for your own domain etc. and get a nice email account you can totally control. Cheap, too.

  3. bullshit - gmail does NOT recognize dots by rgbrenner · · Score: 5, Informative

    Good call on posting your BS as an AC.

    Google Help: Receiving someone else's mail
    http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10313

    Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they'll all go to your inbox, and only yours. In short:

    homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
    homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
    homerjsimpson@gmail.com = Homer.J.Simpson@gmail.com

    All these addresses belong to the same person. You can see this if you try to sign in with your username, but adding or removing a dot from it. You'll still go to your account.