Security breach - Complete France has been hacked

[darnsarf]

I received the following message in my email this morning:

..........................................................................

Sent: Fri 16/05/2008 06:10

From: [email protected]

Subject: (France Forum) Email from chenevelyn

This email was sent from a user at France Forum. Replying
to this email will be sent back to the user via normal
email.

Sent From: chenevelyn
Subject: Do you need any agent in China to help you

 

Does this mean that all forumites' details have now been hacked into? If so, I can now look forward to many years of thousands of emails selling fake Rolex and 'performance enhancing drugs' !

........................................................

[Dick Smith]

The same person put an advertising post onto the forum early this morning. So they had registered as a user and could send you a PM via the normal route while they lasted. That post seems to have gone, so presumably their registration is now cancelled.

This happens a lot on discussion forums where there is no requirement for registration requests to be moderated.

[darnsarf]

and because I saw from the header that it was a forum message, I opened it. Presumably then the Spammer now has a read receipt confirming my details. Presumably too, the Mods know how many people were pm'd, like me. It might be nice to send an email out to them advising them not to open the earlier email.

[Dick Smith]

Was it an email or a PM?

If it was a PM then, when the spammer's membership was terminated, they lost access to you. If it was an email then, yes, they know that your account is active.

Again, if it was a PM I doubt that the mods can see who has been sent what. Admin may be able to.

[Ron Avery]

They would only know that the E mail address was "live" if they had a read receipt, which AFAIK is not possible for E mails sent via LF.  There was a spate of these a few weeks back, this seems to coincide with a upsurge in the number of bank accounts that I don't have being compromised by security breaches, although there has also been a number of spam E mails recently looking for a read receipt which of course they don't get.

[darnsarf]

It was an email (at least there's no evidence of it in my pm inbox and the header mentions it as an email). It would be reassuring if read receipts or not permissable via this forum.

[Clair]

[quote user="darnsarf"]and because I saw from the header that it was a forum message, I opened it. Presumably then the Spammer now has a read receipt confirming my details. Presumably too, the Mods know how many people were pm'd, like me. It might be nice to send an email out to them advising them not to open the earlier email.[/quote]

As has been pointed out on numerous occasions before, the mods have no access to the forum PM or Email systems.

The poster registered during the might and started several threads which have now been removed.

As Dick rightly says, once the poster has been banned (which has been done), he has no access to the forum PM system.

Emails sent via the forum display the sender's address, but not the recipient's address.

The only way the poster would have obtained your email address would be if you had sent him an email in reply.

[darnsarf]

[quote user="Clair"] As has been pointed out on numerous occasions before, the mods have no access to the forum PM or Email systems.
[/quote]

 

..well not to me, obviously.