I think you've got your facts wrong. Microsoft did not release any email account passwords. What really happened is that somehow someone or a group of people managed to either hack into hotmail accounts, or get hold of hotmail account credentials.

The situation that occurred begs the question of how safe communication over the internet really is. Regardless of the level of security implemented by content and service providers, someone will always find a way to break it. There have also been known to be scams comprising of fluke websites which people unfortunately enter login credentials into thus opening themselves up to situations like this.

The best thing that one can do to protect themselves against email account/online communication hacking is to change your password regularly using a password that cannot easily be determined.

And @walidbest45 , I'd like to add here that next time you should get your facts right before you make any striking statements or come to any unverified conclusions.

by Kamba Abudu on 12th Oct, 2009 at 05:45AM

I disagree with this, as Microsoft would never 'knowingly' release passwords into the hands of any one person or groups of people for mis-use.The issue of any breaches lies with teh account holder to some degree. Many at times, majority of us (users) fail to read the small print attached to initial registration and subscriber formats. We are never really bothered at the time and thus use very easy (indeed easy to hack) passwords!
If you are a regular user of microsoft or even other websites, you would see that most request you use an alpha-numeric password, adn change say every 60-90 days. There are afterall people who have never been hacked into.
According to some recent reports there are as many as 200,000 spam messages found everyday. Some of these messages are selected by the user who unknowingly gives access to the Hacker out there in the www. We as users can only play our part and ensure that we 'protect' ourselves using simple rules, such as changing our passwrd regularly and using a good anti-vrus software.

by Joe Dede on 12th Oct, 2009 at 06:02AM

Two points:

1) The credentials for accounts on other major webmail providers, such as Google's Gmail and Yahoo!, were also made public by the same people.
2) The account credentials were a result of phishing rather than hacking. So it raises questions of trust, but not questions of trust of these particular webmail providers.

by Douglas Greenshields on 12th Oct, 2009 at 06:36AM