email password

[pup]

Hi all, not been on here for years

This morning I cant seem to be able to log on to my idnet.com email address.  I get a message about authentication failed.  I have sent a message to idnet, but wondered if anyone here had any ideas?

Cheers, 

Alan

[Simon]

No problems here, Alan.  Have you changed any settings recently?

[karvala]

Yes, I have the same problem.  No change at my end, but suddenly the IDNet username/password combo no longer works, either in Outlook or in the webmail.  I have checked the e-mail address and password with the web portal, and they have not changed, but they no longer work.

[pup]

I havent changed anything, but all sorted, Brian of Idnet sorted it for me, someone had guessed my password and was using account to spam people.      

[Simon]

Glad it's sorted.  Perhaps we should all look at making our email passwords more secure?

[karvala]

Really?  It's a considerable coincidence that yours and mine stopped working on the same day, and I have just once again double-checked the settings with the IDNet portal, and tried to login via the webmail using those settings (which are the same ones I have used previously), and it definitely doesn't work, so I'm not really buying that.

I've contacted IDNet anyway, and we'll see what they have to say.

[karvala]

Update: I was told that I also had the same problem - my account was apparently being used to send out spam.  There are three points of concern there: (1) the coincidence that at least two users have their accounts hacked on exactly the same day; (2) none of my other accounts have been hacked; and (3) there is no way my password could be guessed (it is not a dictionary word), and it could not have been taken from my computer via a keylogger because it is stored in my Outlook password chain; I haven't actually typed it anywhere before this incident for over a year.  By contrast, the password is available in plain text view from the occasionally troubled IDNet portal, which makes me wonder about the security at their  end.  I'd suggest people keep an eye on their accounts in case there are more examples of this.

[Steve]

Update: I was told that I also had the same problem - my account was apparently being used to send out spam.  There are three points of concern there: (1) the coincidence that at least two users have their accounts hacked on exactly the same day; (2) none of my other accounts have been hacked; and (3) there is no way my password could be guessed (it is not a dictionary word), and it could not have been taken from my computer via a keylogger because it is stored in my Outlook password chain; I haven't actually typed it anywhere before this incident for over a year.  By contrast, the password is available in plain text view from the occasionally troubled IDNet portal, which makes me wonder about the security at their  end.  I'd suggest people keep an eye on their accounts in case there are more examples of this.

With this in mind can I suggest that it makes sense to ensure that your IDNet portal log in password is a 'secure' one and different than any other password that you use with IDNet.

This password can be change like the email password within the customer portal.

[sparky]

A quick question here,

I log into my customer portal using the same login information as my modem/router does to log in. So if I change my customer portal password, do I have to change my router login password as well? or was it just set up like that as default?

[karvala]

With this in mind can I suggest that it makes sense to ensure that your IDNet portal log in password is a 'secure' one and different than any other password that you use with IDNet.

This password can be change like the email password within the customer portal.

You certainly can suggest that, and indeed that was already the case.  Numbers and letters, good length, not based on a dictionary word, and not used for anything else.  That's why I'm quite confident it wasn't guessed, and for the reasons given above, that it wasn't stolen from my machine.

[Steve]

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that it is something we all should do,as there is no point having a secure email password which is displayed as plain text within the portal protected by an unsecure password at portal log in.