I was a dumbass I suppose, but I apparently didn't take account security seriously enough back in the day.
I recently got an email from a product user forum warning me that their forum had been hacked, and that if I used the same "poss werd" for multiple accounts, then I had better scramble and change them all. I admit I use the same one for most of my discussion forums, because using a different one for each meant too many stickies or pieces of paper stored in a drawer. Well that's one thing, but using the same poss werd for my hotmail account was not too bright. When I dug through the mountain of pieces of paper in the desk drawer to see if it was the same as here, I was chagrinned to note that it was. So I changed my hotmail poss werd. Twice. It's a lot stronger now.
Checking "recent activity" was eye opening. Someone in San Francisco logged in to my account once, and someone in China logged in twice. I checked my "sent" box, and there was no foreign material in there. So hopefully no one I've ever contacted got spammed. Perhaps they were just verifying that the old poss werd was viable. Anyway, they should have more difficulty with it now.
Q: Oh, and who was it that got hacked you ask?
A: The Avast! users forum.
