Neowin News Feed for: Accounts

Not used your Twitter account in years? You might lose it

Steve Bennett — Mon, 08 May 2023 18:16:02 +0000

Today Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to confirm another move by the platform, to remove accounts that have seen no activity at all for an as of yet undefined amount of years on the site. Read more...

Twitter saw a record number of content takedown requests from governments last year

Usama Jawad — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 18:13:55 +0000

According to Twitter's transparency report for January-June 2021, the platform faced a record number of account and content takedown requests from governments, with Japan leading the pack. Read more...

Twitter is making it easier to identify personal accounts of heads of state

Usama Jawad — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 05:30:01 +0000

Twitter has announced that it will be adding more labels to state official from G7 countries as well as others which have participated in "information operations" such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Read more...

Epic Games will focus on strengthening user account security this year

Usama Jawad — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 07:36:02 +0000

Epic Games has released a security bulletin detailing the steps that it takes to strengthen account security, as well as laying out its plans for the future, which include SMS-based authentication. Read more...

Fortnite account merging won't surface until "early next year"

Boyd Chan — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 22:34:01 +0000

After Sony retreated on its policy that blocked both cross-play and account sharing with other consoles, Epic Games has been developing a tool to unify disparate accounts but has run into delays. Read more...

Facebook bans 470 "fake" Russian accounts and pages

Paul Hill — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 02:40:01 +0000

Facebook has deleted 470 accounts and pages that it suspects were fake and set up by Russians trying to influence politics. It said the ads did not target the recent US elections last year. Read more...

Twitter has shut down over 600,000 terrorism accounts

Mina Esapa — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 23:10:01 +0000

Social media giant Twitter stated in a transparency report that it has shut down more than 600,000 terrorism accounts since August 2015, with almost 377,000 shut down between July and December 2016. Read more...

Google, Mail.ru and Yahoo claim that more than 98% of the leaked credentials were bogus

Usama Jawad — Sat, 07 May 2016 10:52:01 +0000

Various email providers who were allegedly affected by a data breach that was supposed to have exposed over 272 million account credentials now claim that over 98% of these were bogus. Read more...

Instagram enables multiple account switching

Matt Blowes — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 03:30:01 +0000

In an update available this week, Instagram is switching on support for multiple accounts on its iOS and Android platforms. Meanwhile its Universal app for Windows 10 continues to be missing. Read more...

Google won't block pornography on Blogger after all

Usama Jawad — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:41:57 +0000

Google won't block sexually explicit content on Blogger after all, following backlash from veteran bloggers who would otherwise have had their accounts banned by the end of next month. Read more...

Millions of 'spammy' Instagram accounts deleted; Bieber hit hard losing 3.5m 'Beliebers'

Alec Robertson — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:00:01 +0000

Instagram has completed a huge spam-purge resulting in the deletion of millions of accounts, which were marked posting spam. Some users are not happy. Read more...

Microsoft drops developer annual fee, saves you some cheddar

Brad Sams — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:54:16 +0000

Microsoft has silently cut the fee for those of you who have developer accounts with the company, which is a good move considering that they need as many developers as possible for their ecosystem. Read more...

Delaware becomes first US state to pass "Digital Inheritance" law

James Woodfin — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 05:05:00 +0000

Sometimes, the law is behind technology. However, the first state to ratify the United States Constitution just became the first state to make a step towards rectifying that issue. Read more...

8.5 percent of Twitter accounts are bots [Update]

Andy Weir — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:18:23 +0000

Twitter has confirmed in official documentation that 23 million - around 8.5 percent - of its 271 million monthly active users are actually automated 'bot' accounts, and not authored by real people. Read more...

Twitter flooded with malicious tweets from compromised accounts

Shreyas Gandhe — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 10:09:46 +0000

Twitter has seen a sudden explosion of malicious tweets from compromised accounts using third party apps and services over the last 24 hours, with thousands of users apparently affected. Read more...

Twitter: No accounts were compromised

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 07:29:12 +0000

After reports came out yesterday of Twitter being hacked and thousands of accounts being made public, the company has now gone on the record to clear things up: they weren't hacked! Read more...

Twitter updates search with account discovery and media display

Paul Ferson — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 07:56:58 +0000

An update pushed to Twitter's search system in the past few hours simplifies account discovery, as well as placing further emphasis on sharing images, which are displayed in-line with results. Read more...

Outlook.com: 400 million active accounts, 125 million mobile users

Brad Sams — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:57:20 +0000

Microsoft has announced that the transition from Hotmail to Outlook.com has been completed and that there are now 400 million Outlook.com accounts with 125 million mobile users accessing the service. Read more...

Microsoft Account gets more secure, two-step verification inbound

Brad Sams — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:03:39 +0000

Microsoft has put up a post today that states that Microsoft accounts will now be getting two step authentication which should appease many users who have been asking for the feature. Read more...

Leak shows two-factor authentication is coming to Microsoft Accounts

Tim Schiesser — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:30:21 +0000

A few screenshots of Microsoft Account settings have leaked that indicate the presence of two-step authentication, while an Authenticator app is already available in the Windows Phone Store Read more...

Twitter hacked, up to 250,000 accounts compromised

Tim Schiesser — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:53:34 +0000

Twitter is reporting that they have recently experienced an unauthorized access attempt, with attackers potentially stealing the data - including salted passwords - for around 250,000 accounts Read more...

TweetDeck threatened with closure by UK government

Andy Weir — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:56:39 +0000

British government agency, Companies House, has told Twitter that its UK TweetDeck subsidiary faces the threat of dissolution, after the company missed two deadlines to file accounts. Read more...

Microsoft now allows Xbox Live account country migration

Tim Schiesser — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 04:19:00 +0000

Ever wanted to switch the country specified in your Xbox Live account? Microsoft is now finally taking requests to migrate your account to a new country, although there are numerous things to note Read more...

TechRadar accounts compromised

Paul Ferson — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:47:36 +0000

TechRadar accounts have been compromised, according to an email sent directly from TechRadar's publisher, Nick Merritt. This is one of several sites to have been compromised recently. Read more...

Rumor: Facebook lost 6 million accounts in the US [Update]

John Callaham — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:49:17 +0000

Has Facebook reached its peak of popularity, at least here in the US? While the massive social networking site is still growing and approaching the 700 million mark, its overall worldwide growth has actually slowed,... Read more...

Twitter to sell 'Promoted Accounts'

Alan Cone — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:49:35 +0000

When the social networking site Twitter started up, the founders clearly stated that they would not place advertisements on the service. To combat this, earlier this year they set up a Twitter deal alert service.... Read more...

1.5M Facebook accounts up for sale

Tzvi Friedman — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:22:02 +0000

Computerworld reports that 1.5 million facebook accounts are up for sale by a hacker going by the moniker Kirllos. To be clear, that's .3% of the estimated 400 million total registered Facebook accounts. VeriSign's iDefense... Read more...

Microsoft Bans 1 Million Xbox Live Accounts

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:24:47 +0000

It's being reported today the Microsoft has banned up to 1 Million Xbox Live Accounts. Fresh on the heels of the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 release Microsoft has stepped up their attack on... Read more...

Twitter confirms paid pro accounts coming

Sam Symons — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:29:56 +0000

It's been debated for a while now about whether or not Twitter, a popular social networking service, will begin including a paid pro account for use. Well, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Twitter itself... Read more...

Twitter hacked, Fox News and celebrity accounts fall victim

Andrew Lyle — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:03:58 +0000

Many users got a shock when checking some twitter accounts like, Foxnews, Britney speaks, Barrack Obama, and many others. An attacked launched against celebrity twitter accounts is inserting crude headlines such as "Breaking, Bill... Read more...

Cable Company Empties 14,000 E-Mail Accounts

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:57:21 +0000

Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts. There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that... Read more...

Spam accounts for nearly 95 per cent of email

Daniel Fleshbourne — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:06:42 +0000

Spam email accounted for between 90 and 95 per cent of all email in 2007, up from an estimated five per cent of email in 2001, according to a report from web security company Barracuda... Read more...

Idiot crooks snared by Facebook accounts

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:39:47 +0000

Some criminals reckon it's a very clever idea to borrow large sums of money and then 'go missing' to avoid paying it back. But some of these crooks may not be as smart as they... Read more...

Firefox Exploit leads to Hack for Google Accounts

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Google user accounts are vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks through a dangerous Firefox exploit, which is still in the wild some 10 days after its discovery. A client or server-side exploit can be inserted into... Read more...

Romanian Hacker Broadcasts eBay Customer Accounts

Daniel Fleshbourne — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:50:45 +0000

eBay has confirmed that, early on the morning of March 8 EST, an alleged Romanian hacker calling himself "Born_To_Scam_American_Guys" posted records for 15 eBay users on an eBay forum for between 40-60 minutes before the... Read more...

One Hacker Kit Accounts For 71% Of Attacks

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:20:44 +0000

According to Atlanta, Gerogia-based Exploit Prevention Labs, a multi-exploit hack pack was behind 70.9% of all Web-based attacks throughout December 2006. The kit includes up to a dozen different exploits, including several derived from the... Read more...

Spam Sets Record, Accounts For 94% Of E-mail

Daniel Fleshbourne — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:37:23 +0000

The volume of spam rocketed in December to account for a record 94% of all Internet-sent e-mail during the month, a message security company said Wednesday. "This continued rise in spam levels is threatening the... Read more...

MSN flaw put Hotmail accounts at risk

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:09:22 +0000

Microsoft took part of its MSN Web site offline over the weekend, after it learned of a flaw that could let an attacker gain access to Hotmail accounts, the company said. The... Read more...

Valve Cans 20,000 Steam Accounts

Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:38:23 +0000

Yesterday, Valve disabled approximately 20,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to access Half-Life 2 without purchasing it. The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there... Read more...

Gmail accounts 'wide open to exploit' - report

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:41:33 +0000

Google's high profile webmail service, Gmail, is vulnerable to a security exploit that might allow hackers full access to a user's email account simply by knowing the user name, according to reports. The security flaw... Read more...