A lot of people also have password resets on gmail linked to their old hotmail accounts, so you can just re-create their old hotmail to hijack their current gmail.
A lot of people also have password resets on gmail linked to their old hotmail accounts, so you can just re-create their old hotmail to hijack their current gmail.
I was able to grab myfirstname@yahoo.com. The address looks neat.
Since I’ve had that address, I’ve received password reset emails, bank documents, airline tickets and what not.
Massive security hole is an understatement.
I used to have a great friendship with people in "Hackers Lounge: 1" and everyone used to be 1337 for cracking original names like you said.
I got my first name, and a few friends and I had illegals like \\//\\//estside and H a C K e R and .oO(d00t) which weren't compatible with the email service.
It's a pity that a generation later, the internet meant facebook and not the kind of inquisitive fun I experienced! (maybe I should have played more sport lol).
Far from being surprised free email services "allow reusing emails", I'm way more surprised that orgs like banks and PayPal and crypto exchanges allow using email or sms as "secure reset or 2FA" protocols.
1: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/telcos-declare-sms-unsafe-for-...
In a similar way but a different mechanism, I also had the same thing happen with some accounts which I had opened up using my mobile phone number. I have struggled with mental illness throughout my life, and one of the things that can happen through crises in particular that can have vicious consequences is having no ability to regulate your behavior, in particular your finances, so you easily and quickly wrack up debt, cash out retirement accounts and blow through all that money, and being unable to pay your phone bill (or any other bill) leads you to losing that phone number, and any account which you access through that number.
The systems that we use as a society to authenticate identity for access to digital services and systems, is incredibly punishing to people who struggle with mental health issues. It's a bit of an own goal, since some of the potential solutions to it are potentially technical in nature rather than requiring legislative or societal action.
That said, the difficulties presented by the digital world to people who struggle with mental illness pale in comparison to those they face in the physical world, and how ineffective the society, governments, and medicine are at helping those people, sometimes hurting them in that process through lack of training, ability, and the flaws in the design of the overall systems.
Of course, phone numbers are recycled by telephone providers. So that'll be fun in a few years.