Why does virgin media force users to use insecure passwords?

[Dontwantone]

signing into my virgin media and email only let's you have 10 letter or numbers, it also doesnt allow special characters.

This is not acceptable

[jem101]

@Dontwantone to be blunt, if it really isn’t acceptable to you, then the only answer is to not use the VM email provision and migrate to something else.

Now although it might well seem to be a trivial issue to just allow longer and more complex passwords, the thing is that currently VM is the result of multiple mergers and amalgamations of cable providers, each of which would have had their own way of doing things. Now certainly VM are never going to,  or be expected to, reveal the gory details of how the back end may or may not be held together with sticky tape and paper glue, and nobody wants to touch anything through fear that the whole edifice collapses into a steaming pile.

I can certainly envisage a scenario where it simply isn’t possible, now to allow longer passwords etc. because of a fundamental limitation on one of the precursor infrastructure setups - and nothing short of a complete rebuild with the real risk of customers losing their email can fix it.

Look, the VM email provision is what it is, it works and is probably more than good enough for the vast bulk of their customers, who I swear down, have passwords of ‘password1’, if you want something better (as I do) then make alternative arrangements.

[Dontwantone]

it is not acceptable to me, and it is not acceptable full stop. It is even against vm's own advice for secure passwords.

I should not need to find a solution, we pay for this. Better idea, cancel all my services and vm can shove it

[Dontwantone]

Also the password limit used to a pathetic 8 characters, which can be hacked in minutes, but they managed to upgrade that to the now pathetic 10 characters.  VM is simply not keeping users data safe.

[jem101]

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@Dontwantone wrote:

it is not acceptable to me, and it is not acceptable full stop. It is even against vm's own advice for secure passwords.

I should not need to find a solution, we pay for this. Better idea, cancel all my services and vm can shove it

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Fair enough, but nobody, especially VM care what is relevant or not to you. Bottom line you carry on paying them and moaning about it whilst nothing happens or move on!

Sorry this may sound harsh, and actually I do understand your position while at the same time understating the reality of the way it is.

Now VM for various reasons absolutely will not change their position, so you either suck it up and please stop moaning about it and posting on here which, I promise you, nobody in any position of authority at VM cares about, or you accept the reality of the situation and make your own arrangements.

Look, let’s be honest here, email provision is a real PITA, VM would much rather not to offer one at all you know it, I know it, VM really knows it but can’t say it.

Whatever you might, or might not think is acceptable or reliable, bottom line VM don’t care. Their email provision is what it is, now the choice is yours either a) accept what it is and make alternative arrangements or b) carry on whining about it and demanding that ….. none of which will ever happen but it will provide a small degree of entertainment for the rest of us reading your posts requesting/demanding/pleading etc. safe in the knowledge that you are shouting into the void…..

You may well disagree, I promise you though I do know what I am talking about…. choice is entirely yours

[Dontwantone]

A nice truthfull response thank you.

I was mislead into thinking that the community was setup for helping to resolve issues but really its just a forum for users to help eachother. I only stay with vm because it would take a long tome to migrate to another email, i have been with them for over 20 years. So if I no longer need vm email, Im no longer tied. So it will be bye bye vm, we pay my money to companies that take their GDPR compliance seriously

[jem101]

@Dontwantone indeed this forum is a sort of customer support system, and where possible we do try to help resolve issues. 

May I make a suggestion? If you were to move to another broadband provider, and use their email provision then would you be any better off? Possibly their security would be better but you would still be tied into them!

So for a moment forget about VM’s email provision and think of it as a sort of ‘free add on’ which might or might or might not be any good. How is your general internet connectivity? Now if your answer to the last question is ‘rubbish’ or ‘completely c&@p’, the read no further and call VM tomorrow morning to cancel. But if the underlaying connection is working OK for you then why cut off your nose to spite your face? Just sort yourself out an alternative/better email provider, say gmail or outlook and gradually migrate across to it.

If at some time in the future, you decide to leave VM then so be it, but your third party email will remain, irrespective of whichever provider you have.

[goslow]

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@Dontwantone wrote:

<snip>I only stay with vm because it would take a long tome to migrate to another email, i have been with them for over 20 years. So if I no longer need vm email, Im no longer tied. <snip>

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Takes a while to totally migrate email accounts (probably over the course of a year to allow for annual email messages such as insurance renewals and updates etc. etc.) but well worth the effort. I ditched VM email about 10 years ago with one reason being poor security.

Better security and better features are readily available elsewhere, minus the random and inexplicable breakdowns and other 'occurrences' that happen so frequently with VM email.

[Dontwantone]

We joined donkeys years ago, and at that time with the internet in its infancy, we were not savvy enough to use an independent email provider. But with hindsight we would have. So with a new provider for all our services we would do exactly that. There is absolutely no need to stay with VM with its half baked inept approach

[Dontwantone]

Exactly, it takes a long time to migrate and theres bound to be some accounts that have been missed.But i will start the process.