Hotmail and Facebook co-opted.

[no_hypocrisy]

Last week my friend got a new laptop, made in China. Almost immediately all her contacts on her hotmail account got an e-mail, with a message claiming she was in Wales, mugged, without money, please send her money to return home. All her contacts knew she wasn't in Wales (and recognized it didn't "sound" like her) and she'd been hacked. When my friend tried to access her hotmail account, the password had been changed, the answer to her secret question changed. And she found her Facebook account has also been hacked. (She had taken herself off F/B since May and suddenly her account had been re-activated).

She contacted "herself" by opening another e-mail account under a different name. The hackers instructed where to wire the money, even gave her an address, supposedly Western Union. A map search on Google showed a house in Hampshire, England. A variation on the Nigerian scams.

It's one week later and her local police, the FBI, and Interpol are now involved.

Her IT friend got her back into the hotmail account where she changed her password and within an hour, the hacker accessed her account and locked her out with a new password and personal question.

Hotmail won't help her b/c her account is free. Facebook also apathetic.

Has this happened to anyone else?

She thinks there was a bug in the laptop that allowed the hacking.

[rurallib]

1. we had a friend go through a similar event over a year ago

emails sent to his email list that he had been kidnapped.
I don't think he had hotmail, can't remember now.
Since then there have been a couple others. Can't remember the details.

We have also had friends whose email gets hijacked to send ads for Canadian meds. Various email accounts.

[canoeist52]

2. Happened to me too

Hotmail, My Space, and Facebook accouts accessed. Fixed the Facebook but the others were a wash. Couldn't get back int them. Changed my e-mail and beefed up my passwords for all accounts.

I think the Hotmail account was the source of the virus hack

[hobbit709]

3. More likely the first time she went online something got in.

Security right out of the box is laughable. Half the preloaded crap is little more than spyware. Most of them come with Norton installed. IMO Norton is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

[ET Awful]

4. The likelihood that it was something pre-existing on the laptop is almost nil.

Simply because a computer is made in China doesn't mean it's out to get you.

Mass produced computers just clone hard drives. Every computer leaving the factory has an identical image on the hard drive. You would hear of this happening to every single owner of that model.

It's far more likely that she downloaded something or clicked on something that caused it.

[hobbit709]

5. And over 90% are made in China.

and the ones that aren't are assembled from parts made in China.

[ET Awful]

6. I don't think the percentage is that high.

Many of the largest companies (Dell and some of the HP and Toshiba stuff I've worked with ) actually manufacture in places like Malaysia now.

Many of the parts are made in Taiwan, Thailand, etc. Some companies have chip factories in Germany (and AMD is building one in the US).

I think most of the production in China these days is smaller devices (cell phones, MP3 players, etc.).

[hobbit709]

7. Dell uses motherboards made by Foxconn in China.

[ET Awful]

8. Hmmm. . . I don't think that's universal to be honest. Some of the ones I have

at work, the MB says it was made in either Taiwan or Thailand (I'd have to look again). BUT, some of those are older models, so that may well have changed (the newer ones I haven't really had a need to dig that deeply into yet).

In any event, the fact remains that the odds of the problem in the OP came from the factory are extremely slim.

[IDemo]

12. Maybe not, but see this from yesterday:

U.S. official says pre-infected computer tech entering country

Confirming years of warnings from government and private security experts, a top Homeland Security official has acknowledged that computer hardware and software is already being imported to the United States preloaded with spyware and security-sabotaging components.

The remarks by Greg Schaffer, the Department of Homeland Security's acting deputy undersecretary for national protection and programs, came Thursday during a tense exchange at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The panel is considering an Obama administration proposal to tighten monitoring and controls on computer equipment imported for critical government and communications infrastructure.

Schaffer didn't say whether the equipment he was talking about included end-user consumer tech like retail laptops, DVDs and media players. If so, his comments, first reported Friday morning by Fast Company, would be the first time the United States has publicly confirmed that foreign consumer technology is arriving in the country already loaded with nasty bugs like key-logging software, botnet components and even software designed to defeat security programs installed on the same machine.

DHS did not respond to requests to clarify Schaffer's remarks.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/08/7043349-us-official-says-pre-infected-computer-tech-entering-country

[tomm2thumbs]

13. very pertinent posting - thanks

makes you wonder if ANYone is minding the store

[ET Awful]

15. Is it possible? Sure, but if they're not willing to clarify and add detail, I take it with a grain

of salt.

Without details, I'd consider any such report questionable. I have yet to encounter anything remotely resembling this type of software that came preloaded, and I work on a LOT of computers. Without fail, every instance I've encountered of malicious software came about as a result of internet activity.

[Broderick]

17. Interesting!

Thanks!

[nebenaube]

9. If you don't use https (SSL) with Facebook...

Your session will be hacked. It is only a matter of time. Google for directions to reconfigure your facebook account.

[Broderick]

18. this?

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-media/facebook-how-to-enable-ssl-for-your-account-009958.php

[nebenaube]

20. Yes, that's it. n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

10. I've got a new Lenovo laptop and had no such problem...

and Lenovo is a Chinese company-- used to make the IBM laptops until IBM got out of the business. I've had no such problems, even using the thing mostly on unsecured WiFi.

But, one of my brothers had the same thing happen-- his Hotmail account was hacked a few years ago and his entire address book got notice that he was stranded somewhere in England and needed some cash fast. And that wasn't on a laptop.

[Gman]

11. I saw an article this week somewhere about new hardware

manufactured in Asia having malware embedded in the firmware. It sounds like her new laptop could be infected.

[bemildred]

14. Never plug it into the net until you have cleaned up all the pre-installed crap.

Then you remove all the OS crap you don't want or need. Then you get a good AV program (like AVG). Then you let all the automatic update crap do it's thing.

YMMV.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Something similiar weird happening to me on Yahoo.

Every time I try to get mail, a separate page/tab opens up saying I have to change my password, providing me a place to do so. But the original tab is "my" yahoo mail tab, opens just fine into my mail account.
In any event, I have emptied my Yahoo mail account of all mails, since they are going to change their format which is buggy as hell, as I found out in account #2 I had with them. It got locked out, then I got an email saying they had changed my password but never told me what the changed password was!
Hmmmm..wonder if that was a hack, too?

Any recs for a GOOD online email site?

[ChazII]

19. This happened to a friend of mine.

However, her email is through Yahoo. The story is the same but she was stranded in London.

[bluestate10]

21. She should have her IT friend scan all of the BIOS for her laptop, the

hack gate should be found somewhere in those critical IP footprints. A good IT mind should be able to fix the problem.