My Outlook account got hacked. E-mails leaked by IMAP automatic sync. How this happened?

Anonymous
2017-12-27T07:24:23+00:00

My Outlook account got hacked. Have been using this e-mail  account from the early days of Hotmail. E-mails leaked by IMAP automatic sync despite using different password than on other sites and having two factor authentication activated.

Got warning SMS from Microsoft and when checking recent activity, i saw multiple "Successful Syncs" listed from countries like China, Thailand, Russia, Poland, Brazil, Ukraine, Philippines, Kazakhstan and Iran. These syncs took place in two different times in four hour intervals. How could this be possible? Why Microsoft detected that something fishy is going on but allowed sync to be completed anyway? Doesn't IMAP sync have some kind of location based checks in place like when logging in into other MS sites and services?

Since then, I have changed the password of my account, unlinked Skype from my Microsoft account, deleted any active app passwords.

I see again some IMAP syncs in my activity tab and they are now marked as "Unsuccessful". Small consolation knowing that your whole e-mail history is already leaked into some Chinese servers :(

How this all could have happened? Is there a security hole in Microsoft's IMAP sync implementation?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Account management, security, and privacy

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Anonymous
2019-10-19T13:55:26+00:00

Dear Tech community,

as far as we know now, there was an UX issue on the MSA recent activity page, where a subset of unsuccessful IMAP syncs are erroneously shown as successful. This bug should be fixed in a couple of days and we hope that no one was ever compromised.

Cheers

Volker

P.S.: IP addresses are translating to countries like Bangladesh, Brasil, China etc. A hacker can  simply fake their source IP, therefore it is difficult to say, where the hack attacks are coming from. Please just keep using security best practices for your hotmail/outlook accounts with difficult passwords to be changed as often as possible and leverage multi factor authentication.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/11/20/sign-in-to-your-microsoft-account-without-a-password-using-windows-hello-or-a-security-key/

All other email providers have the same challenge to help their customers to secure their username/password authentications.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-06-19T12:27:59+00:00

    I've the same problem! (2020 Jun)

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T11:03:49+00:00

    Microsoft is leaking information to Facebook and Google like names ,emails , letters , family pictures , phone numbers , bank accounts , Facebook basically a front , they sell data , credit report . background checks . it goes lot further i can send you link but you buy your family's credit , photo's , work history , where they lived , past bills .work history , company's hire this company owned by Facebook . they got company's all around the world . they nothing they don't no about you or your family , they report to credit company but you never see them , https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=Microsoft&page=1   , this is just part of it , Facebook ,Google they all bunch up , Google Corporate Office Address: Erika-Mann-Straße 33, 80636 München, Germany

    Hours: 

    Open ⋅ Closes 9PM   Phone: +49 89 839309029.   https://www.corian.com/the-new-microsoft-germany-hq-facade-features-fascinating-depth-thanks-to-corian      then you got Facebook trading with Microsoft for $$$ , https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=Facebook&page=1  and google . https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=google&page=1   ,then comes Experian . but you can buy your credit report ,your history , from any of these company's .  it works in circle , the company pays the around 800.00 a person ever month maybe two weeks not sure . the company reports your work ,payroll ,address, they report back more information . You can look all this up and find more company's tied to your Email ,home ,work ,family , but thank these for making a living off of us .then Data Breach , that just data dump , upload new information ,

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-05-22T11:01:24+00:00

    Microsoft is leaking information to Facebook and Google like names ,emails , letters , family pictures , phone numbers , bank accounts , Facebook basically a front , they sell data , credit report . background checks . it goes lot further i can send you link but you buy your family's credit , photo's , work history , where they lived , past bills .work history , company's hire this company owned by Facebook . they got company's all around the world . they nothing they don't no about you or your family , they report to credit company but you never see them , https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=Microsoft&page=1   , this is just part of it , Facebook ,Google they all bunch up , Google Corporate Office Address: Erika-Mann-Straße 33, 80636 München, Germany

    Hours: 

    Open ⋅ Closes 9PM

    Phone: +49 89 839309029.   https://www.corian.com/the-new-microsoft-germany-hq-facade-features-fascinating-depth-thanks-to-corian      then you got Facebook trading with Microsoft for $$$ , https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=Facebook&page=1  and google . https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-search.html?term=google&page=1   ,then comes Experian . but you can buy your credit report ,your history , from any of these company's .  it works in circle , the company pays the around 800.00 a person ever month maybe two weeks not sure . the company reports your work ,payroll ,address, they report back more information . You can look all this up and find more company's tied to your Email ,home ,work ,family , but thank these for making a living off of us .then Data Breach , that just data dump , upload new information ,

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-05-21T21:46:11+00:00

    check your 2fa, my 2fa would be sent to my phone but would be sent via a phone number, instead of msft or veryfi, these texts were sent to me, but i received the text before they were sent???????????????? 

    very confusing considering my other texts come through at the time they  were sent

    Now I unlinked all of my accounts from hotmail so I hope I'm safe now.

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