E-Mail Password Threat

turbojimmy wrote:

Pirate wrote:
How would they know one of his passwords?

From any of the dozens of corporate breaches. Most recently Facebook, USPS and Starwood (Hilton).

Change passwords frequently and scan for ransomware. I have mixed emotions about storing data in "the cloud" but it's probably a good idea to at least backup the important stuff out there (Google Drive and iCloud come to mind). If your machine gets locked down with ransomware you can recover it.

How timely. I just received an email from Quora that they were hacked. I don't even remember setting up an account but do read their stuff occasionally. Below is an excerpt from the email:

What information was involved
The following information of yours may have been compromised:
• Account and user information, e.g. name, email, IP, user ID, encrypted password, user account settings, personalization data
• Public actions and content including drafts, e.g. questions, answers, comments, blog posts, upvotes
• Data imported from linked networks when authorized by you, e.g. contacts, demographic information, interests, access tokens (now invalidated)