Forum Discussion

Teknophobe's avatar
Teknophobe
Tuning in
3 years ago

ALERT! I'm hacked you and stolen you information

I received the below email 3 days ago and have followed all of the instructions at https://www.virginmedia.com/help/security/why-is-my-virgin-media-email-hacked (I've removed the password and my ema...
  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    3 years ago

    This is a generic template which lots of people have received at some point (including myself).

    When a password is quoted it is, most-likely, one that has been harvested from a data leak along with an email address.

    Those most vulnerable in this scenario are people who use the same email/password combo across multiple sites.

    This site

    https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    allows you to check email/passwords to see if they have been previously leaked and appear on any known leaked lists.

silversurfer's avatar
silversurfer
Joining in
2 years ago

Yes this scam is still happening as I received the same email today, apparently generated from my own account and it left me in a complete state of shock. Of course, I know that there are no nasty videos of me but I'm not that tech savvy and don't know what if Deep Fake technology is possible. It is some comfort to know that this a generic scam and I will not pay the $400 blackmail. 

The hacked email account was a secondary email that I've had for 30+ years and although pwn says 4x data breeches 5+ years ago, the pw was different then. In fact, the password (in use yesterday) was not shared across any other sites and only used for this single email address. although I accept that it could be regarded as weak or moderate. I've now changed the password again to a more secure one and changed the security question. My Facebook account was taken over yesterday which used the same email address but a different password. 

I have reported this threat to the Police but I'm reaching out to the Forum Team for help. I've now read the previous posts that suggest an Internal VM leak and the truth is that I raised a complaint just last week on VM using this very email address, which has not yet been answered.

Michael, (a loyal customer since Feb 1996)

Paul_DN's avatar
Paul_DN
Forum Team
2 years ago

Hi silversurfer,

Thank you for reaching out to us in our community and welcome, srry to hear you have also received an Email regards being hacked and someone having your details, so I can help I will send you an invite into a private chat, once received please click on the purple envelope to accept.

Regards

Paul.