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Hacked e-mail

allanhardy
Joining in

My blueyonder account has been hacked, sensitive data from those e-mails has been used to buy goods online(fraudulently). I put a hold on my e bay account and contacted virginmedia to make them aware of the problem. By the time that virginmedia gave me back access to my e-mails I was £451.24 worse off and too late to stop transactions involving game codes only (not goods). I have since changed all my passwords but I do feel that if virginmedia had acted quicker to return my email account to me then I would not have lost money by fraud.

3 REPLIES 3

allanhardy
Joining in

My blueyonder account has been hacked costing me some money. Is virginmedia responsible for the safekeeping of such data and do they report breaches to the Data Protection Registrar?

Well they certainly won't refund the money you have lost, no. In terms of data breeches then, of course, if VM were themselves to suffer some kind of attack which exposed personal data then they would be obliged to report it.

But in this case, can you prove that it was VM that leaked your passwords for your email? If, say, someone had your email address and guessed, or more likely, discovered that you used the same password (or similar) for another site which themselves were hacked - then that person would have access to your email. VM would have no means of knowing that it wasn't you and hence block access.

Although we often use the term 'hacked' it really is overused, there is no demon hacker, franticly probing for weaknesses to get into VM's email system, it's far, far more likely that someone got your password from other sources and basically walked in the front door.

Paulina_Z
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hi @allanhardy,

 

Welcome to our Community Forums! Thank you for your post and I'm sorry to hear that your email has been accessed without your consent and your sensitive information has been accessed.

 

I can understand how frustrating and worrying this situation must be, and I apologise that you have to experience this. You can take some further steps to ensure your account is secure by creating a Strong Password and taking a look at our Keep Your Account Safe page on our website. 

 

Please let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

 

Thank you,

Paulina_Z
Forum Team

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