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Tbird contacts hacked

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by AgnesRM

Len
Len
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My email address book (contacts) in Thunderbird was just compromised. Now I am getting calls and emails from many people who received an email asking them to purchase a gift card for me. It is an obvious scam, and I am explaining this to anyone who reaches me, but why isn't the Tbird address book encrypted? Any bad actor who gets the list can send many emails to the addressees.

Norton 360 Security did not stop the intrusion, although I did find and remove over 300 tracking cookies. I think that the fact T-bird keeps the address file as a simple, unencrypted file in the c: directory is the real problem.

My email address book (contacts) in Thunderbird was just compromised. Now I am getting calls and emails from many people who received an email asking them to purchase a gift card for me. It is an obvious scam, and I am explaining this to anyone who reaches me, but why isn't the Tbird address book encrypted? Any bad actor who gets the list can send many emails to the addressees. Norton 360 Security did not stop the intrusion, although I did find and remove over 300 tracking cookies. I think that the fact T-bird keeps the address file as a simple, unencrypted file in the c: directory is the real problem.

All Replies (1)

AgnesRM
AgnesRM
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Are you sure that the Thunderbird address book was hacked, and not your online email (webmail) address book? If your own computer has been hacked in spite of Norton, then you may need to watch out for many more attacks using your login info from browsers and perhaps ransomware. However if the online email provider account was hacked, it may go no further than nuisance emails. Compare the address lists in TB and online, see if you can tell which was the source. Also check yourself here https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see whether your online email password perhaps stolen from a hacked site elsewhere.