One of the world leading email provides is stepping up their security for all their users. Since the beginning of email, spam has always been a problem that is very hard to combat.
As spammers continue to get smarter with their phishing emails, Hotmail is attempting to stay one step ahead. Hotmail is rolling out a new security feature that lets you help identify an email account as spam, called "My friend"s been hacked!" Users may have already noticed this feature in Hotmail under the mark as dropdown.
The Windows Team Blog went in depth about how the feature works and how it helps keeps your friends email safe and secure. When a user receives a suspicious email from a friend, they mark the email as "My friend"s been hacked!", which automatically puts all their emails into your junk folder.
The Hotmail team receives this complaint and combines it with information inside their spam detection engine and takes the necessary actions upon the account. In the case that an email actually has been hacked, Microsoft will lock down the account, preventing further spam from that account.
In order for your friends to re-active their account, they will have to follow and successfully complete the account recovery; make sure your account information is up to date and accurate.
The Hotmail team has also worked closely with Yahoo! and Gmail to also accept these reports and further investigate any suspicious activity on email accounts.
In addition to this new security feature, Microsoft is also preventing users from using common passwords like "password" and "123456". This will also include common phrases and words used by millions of people like "ilovecats". The feature won"t require users to update their passwords if they use a common password, but going forward, this passwords will no longer be allowed.