The Joys of Owning an ‘OG’ Email Account
Summary: Krebs describes owning a short, desirable "OG" Gmail address tied to a hacking term, which draws constant account-takeover attempts and has been signed up involuntarily for accounts at H&R Block, Turbotax, TaxAct, iTunes, LastPass, Dashlane, MyPCBackup and Credit Karma, plus active bank, ISP and web hosting accounts. He says the address is listed as the backup for more than three dozen Yahoo, Microsoft and other Gmail accounts, and that for several years he received monthly statements meant for an older gentleman in India managing retirement holdings through that Gmail account.
Key Takeaway: More than three dozen people made a stranger's inbox the recovery path for their accounts, and one of them was routing substantial retirement holdings through it - a single address they did not control sat behind all of it.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Data Breaches
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