Outlook.com/Hotmail warnings. Bother?

[erixx]

Hi there,

Newly named outlook.com has a nice feature: it tracks the location from where you logon into the e-mail service.
Well, not many months ago I received a warning from them that some intent to log on was made from an unusual location, namely Ireland and some other place, and they suggested to change my password. Which I did.

Now I received again this warning, because there was a logon intent from an Inner China place. Again I changed my password.

Questions of interest:
1) am I being (made) paranoid unnecessarily?
2) does this happen to other mail ISP's but those accounts do not warn me?
3) is this cool and should I move all my mail to outlook.com?

 

[RCoon]

am I being (made) paranoid unnecessarily?

Slightly. I wouldn't change password every single time. They're probably trying to bruteforce hundreds if not thousands of email accounts with basic password attempts.

It happens to most mail accounts that I'm aware of, although usually it locks the account and asks for your security question crap afterwards. Good way to protect yourself is to sync your phone number with your account, that way it requires 2 step verification to re-activate your email account, and one of those steps is a text with a key on it.

 

[erixx]

yeah, I supposted (but not mentioned) that if they "attempt" it, but "I" can still access my account and settings, it means it was only an "attempt" and not a "success"! Thanks mate!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't know the criteria for that message as I have only seen it once, I changed my password from an unsecure password to a hyper-secure (Random Password Generator) password and never seen that message again.

From what I can gather, I think Microsoft only sends this notification to you if an attempted brute force succeeds. As such, I would recommend changing your password again to something that is very secure (long, has symbols, has numbers, has upper case, and has lower case). Great, memorable passwords are basically a phase. Example: "I can count backwards from ONE00!"

 

[erixx]

Just wait for the future warning... it will come to you...
Anyway, better passwords are great... if we didn't have so many devices, but yes, a strong one is a must! thanks!