It’s not uncommon for ISPs to have multiple login sections, some of which cater to generic items and others to specific account features, or packages, or and anything else you care to think of. The former owner couldn’t get the account shut down due to a multi-tiered portal setup. This is similar to how mail menaces will use “RE:…” in their subject titles to make the email look as though it’s part of an actual discussion. The scammers reused previous subject lines to make it all look a touch more above board.
(The Register article doesn’t go into detail on this, and frankly it’d be a minor miracle if the affected person had any idea what happened some eight years on).įriends of the account owner became aware something was up when the account started sending them emails with suspicious links to. In this case, the account was indeed hijacked somehow. It could be something as simple as the person having drastically improved their security practices over the years, yet old accounts are forever tied to something like “password123”. The compromise doesn’t even have to be a database breach.
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But to keep an email dormant while attached to someone’s identity-and for eight full years-is a bad idea, because at some point it’s probably going to be compromised. It's a "non targeted" if we're going by the examples above, but, in contrast to those examples, it's causing considerable headaches for the account owner.Ĭompanies usually keep multiple pieces of data on former customers for a period after account cancellation-web browsing history, payment methods, or old addresses, for example. However, in this case, the former account owner is still alive. The outcome is the same-an account, long dormant, is harvested and brought back into action, zombie-style. While we often see accounts belonging to the dead compromised and dragged into all manner of dubious online activities, this situation is a little different. It's quite common on social media, and for the scammer, it's "just business." Rather, the account is just there to serve as a sock puppet/fake account to sell a scam or push a bogus product. Non targeted: This is a deliberate hack, but it isn’t specifically about the victim. This was, of course, enormously distressing for everyone involved. A victim of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, cinema shooting randomly tweeted “I’m alive” some years after the event. Targeted: This is when trolls or other ne’er-do-wells specifically target an account to cause distress or just get a cheap laugh. For example, critic Roger Ebert’s wife accidentally started sending public messages instead of direct messages via his inactive Twitter feed. They are:Īccidental: This is where a previously dormant account comes back to life, but with no malicious intent behind it. There are typically three ways of "rezzing" a dormant account, aka bringing it back.
Of course, this content is a prime target for cybercriminals, who can pilfer contacts and other data from long-dormant accounts. I’ve talked in the past about how when loved ones die, their emails, social network accounts, and more keep on keeping on. If you've cancelled an account and wondered which bits of your digital data continue to live on, this story is for you.
In this case, UK ISP TalkTalk kept an old customer’s email account alive some eight years after she closed it-which left it wide open for takeover by spammers. In a novel twist on “ What happens to our accounts when we die,” we have “ what happens to our abandoned accounts while we're still alive”.
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