Hackers have been around almost since the birth of the Internet. Some tend to go the easy route of stealing your cellphone or laptop in order to get your information. Others go bigger. While that requires a little more work, there is also more of a payoff when they go after bigger companies. AOL (News - Alert) is the latest big time company to fall victim to hackers, and this time the criminals have managed to infiltrate customer email accounts.
The company admits it has been hacked and infected with spoof accounts that are all sending spam messages but it won’t or can’t say just how many accounts were affected. Users seem to be trying to figure out just how many people were hacked by turning to social media. The Twitter (News - Alert) hashtag #aolhacked is filling up quickly with accounts of spam being sent from the hacked email account or an account that is made to look like the original.
It isn’t clear exactly how people are going to be able to fight back against these accounts at the moment, though the fact that the hacking has actually been made public is certainly one way to do so. AOl hasn’t commented much at all, other than to say it is working on the problem. The Twitter account for the company has been working to try and direct people to a help page that will give people some answers and suggestions to minimize the damage.
The hacking first seemed to be noticed late last week and the company is saying that if users receive an email from an AOL account, it would be better not to open it at the present time. Sources working on the problem have apparently told Tech Crunch they believe the issue has been limited to less than 1 percent of total users.
Edited by Maurice Nagle
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