Software giant Microsoft Corp. has blocked on Tuesday thousands of Hotmail accounts after hackers posted its respective passwords in the Internet.
Microsoft, in a statement, said that they immediately blocked access to this accounts after hackers were able to plundering account information through phishing activities, then posting the accounts passwords online. Hotmail is the software giant’s free e-mail service.
“We are fully aware that several thousands of Windows Live Hotmail accounts have been hacked using phishing scheme. The credentials were then exposed on a certain website,” Microsoft spokesperson said in an interview.
“We are assuring our clients that we have already taken the necessary measures to block access to these phished accounts. We have also set up a help service for all those affected, so that they can reclaim their accounts,” the spokesperson added.
Based on records, most of the affected accounts were from Europe. Microsoft said that the problem was immediately addressed during the weekend.
But the technology giant refused to reveal the exact website where the postings were allegedly sighted.
It was learned that most of the phishing attacks used by hackers were designed and engineered to trick users into logging their users’ information to a bogus website.
Hackers then gather this information then sending out spam to the networks of friends using the infected accounts.
Most of these spam messages also contain malicious software or malwares that would embed itself to the users’ computers.
Meanwhile, Washington-based technology firm Redmond clarified that the incidents were not an internal breach of Microsoft data.
“We categorically deny that a breach took place in Microsoft. This is an industry-wide problem and users should be more vigilant about phishing.
They should exercise more caution when opening these kinds of unsolicited or spam messages,” Redmond added.
The company also advised users to regularly update their anti-virus software to avoid being infiltrated by hackers.
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