Postscript mea culpa: After posting this, I have been informed (see comments below) that the Facebook issue did not involve password leaks. This was clearly indicated in the article: “Personally identifiable information, like social security numbers, passwords or credit cards, weren’t stolen.” I should have studied the issue more carefully before jumping to the conclusion that the password leak I experienced came from Facebook. One point in my original post that is correct is that it’s a good idea not to use the same password over and over (as I had done to some extent) and to change passwords from time to time. Sorry for the error.
Kirk here, and I think my Facebook account was one of the millions that was hacked.
I got this message in Japanese from a hacker who claimed to have hacked my yahoo.co.jp e-mail account (associated with Facebook) and demanded that I pay a ransom in bitcoin:
こんにちは！
私は数ヶ月前にあなたの電子メールとデバイスをクラックしたハッカーです。 あなたが訪問したサイトの1つにパスワードを入力君た。それを傍受しました。
これは、ハッキングの瞬間に[email protected]からのあなたのパスワードです： actually Facebook password was here
もちろん、それを変更したり、すでに変更したりすることができます。 しかし、それは問題ではありません、私のマルウェアは毎回それを更新しました。
The e-mail goes on to tell me the unpleasant things they have planned for me and why I need to pay. Of course, I’m not paying. They hadn’t really gotten my yahoo.co.jp password as they claimed – it was the Facebook password – but a person using the same password on e-mail as on Facebook wouldn’t know that. Nasty.
Add this to the “hate” side of my “love-hate” relationship with Facebook.
Also, as is often recommended, don’t use the same password on multiple accounts.
