[Melimo]

This is so frustrating!!!

I've had my AOL account since 1999. It has never been hacked. Even get pushed emails to my ipod touch for at least a year. No problem.

But now that I added my AOL account to my Playbook, I keep getting an authentication notice to submit my password (ON MY BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK) whenever I want to check my email because it "Cannot connect to server" in my messages app. I entered my password and was able to check my email. Only issue is, when I go on my computer, I see my email's been hacked (probably because I just gave the offender my password). I keep getting texts from friends about random emails I never sent.

Why am I getting this notification on my Playbook to enter my password?

I also have my husband's work email on my Playbook and recently noticed this notification popped up for HIS password too. What the heck is up???

[Shao128]

"AOL Email Hacked through Playbook!!!"

From what you posted there is no way to know that your email was hacked due to your PlayBook. You may have spy/malware on your computer, someone could be sniffing your wifi etc...More than likely it was nothing to do with the PlayBook.

As for why the pop up on the PlayBook I don't know why that would happen, perhaps someone else would know.

[Bla1ze]

Happens on my GMail account all the time, it's a OS bug.. has nothing to do with your email being hacked by way of your PlayBook. A quick look around the forums and you'd have spotted it as a common issue where the PlayBook will forget the email password. Though, if you're getting texts from other people, clearly there is more to the story here but again, it has nothing to do with your PlayBook.

[Melimo]

How can it have nothing to do with the Playbook when it's happened to my husband's work email too? We don't use the same PC's to access both of our emails. We also don't have this happening with any of our other emails on my computer synced with the Playbook.

And I have seen the emails in my spam folder labeled "undeliverable". Every spam email being sent to a friend has a link in it (most likely to some sort of virus/malware). So this if this is an OS problem, it's a HUGE problem and one that will make me never trust BB again.

[kbz1960]

Sometimes I would get emails from me to me in my old yahoo account before the PB was ever thought of. Someone spoofing my addy.

[Melimo]

I assumed it was spoofing, but they have access to my contact list. That's not spoofing.

[cbvinh]

There seems to be two things going on here:

1. The Playbook is having issues retrieving your emails, due to a bug in the native email application, and keeps on requesting your password to re-authenticate. This request is not coming from a hacker that's trying to get your password.

2. Your email address and your husband's email address were used as "Sent by" by some spambot. For this to happen, it only requires that your email address (and your husband's) to be in a email that you have sent to a compromised computer; that is, your computer, your husband's computer, or someone you emailed has a computer that's been hacked. If you've ever received spam before, you'll notice that the "Sent by" can easily be faked. Since it's mostly your friends that are receiving these spam emails, I would suspect either your computer, your husband's computer or a friend of yours that's been hacked. Chances are, your circle of friends have very similar email address books, i.e. same contacts.

[kbz1960]

I think it is a coincidence. The last week I started getting blank subject emails from a friend with a link which I'm sure is a virus. She has nothing RIM made.

[Melimo]

There seems to be two things going on here:

1. The Playbook is having issues retrieving your emails, due to a bug in the native email application, and keeps on requesting your password to re-authenticate. This request is not coming from a hacker that's trying to get your password.

2. Your email address and your husband's email address were used as "Sent by" by some spambot. For this to happen, it only requires that your email address (and your husband's) to be in a email that you have sent to a compromised computer; that is, your computer, your husband's computer, or someone you emailed has a computer that's been hacked. If you've ever received spam before, you'll notice that the "Sent by" can easily be faked. Since it's mostly your friends that are receiving these spam emails, I would suspect either your computer, your husband's computer or a friend of yours that's been hacked. Chances are, your circle of friends have very similar email address books, i.e. same contacts.

Thank you for being helpful and not overly protective of RIM possibly having issues, CBVINH! I will have to do some investigating on hubby's work computer, as mine has been scanned and cleared.

I will

[ChrisRH]

I will be fully honest, I do not believe this is your playbook. However can I make the recommendation that you change your password for you AOL. I would recommend your husband change your password to. I would recommend you change these passwords from a clean PC(not your usual).

Do you use same password for multiple things(i.e. Banking), if so change it, does your husband share this common password, he should do the same.

There is no spyware or trojans for the playbook, but the computers definitely could have them. Also, did you install any apps that asked to create a user account? In this day an age, there are thousands of places someone can get your passwords.

[DaedalusIcarusHelios]

First of all, change your passwords on those email accounts. If you have unsecured wifi, lock it down. As kbz1960 said, it may be that those emails were just spoofed to appear as being from you. You need to look at the message headers to find out.

If you are hacked, and it has anything to do with the PlayBook, it's likely from wifi, not the PlayBook per se.

[Melimo]

No, this AOL password is unique, I use it only for AOL. Also, I had just recently changed it, had no spam incidents so I deleted the account on my Playbook, added it again with the new password, and received the same notifications throughout the day to authenticate. And my email was hacked again. I'm trying everything not to abandon this email as it is pretty significant in my day to day life. If it turns out that it was someone spoofing, it may be the death of it though, but I can't quite gather how someone who is spoofing my email can gain access to my entire contact list.

Also, my wifi is secured. And I also just remembered during the first incident, I eventually lost all access to my emails through the app. It was some sort of PIM error notification that popped up along with the password one.

[BB_Bmore]

Happens on my GMail account all the time, it's a OS bug.. has nothing to do with your email being hacked by way of your PlayBook. A quick look around the forums and you'd have spotted it as a common issue where the PlayBook will forget the email password. Though, if you're getting texts from other people, clearly there is more to the story here but again, it has nothing to do with your PlayBook.

You have to use a two step authorization process for Gmail. Once you setup the two step authorization on Gmail via desktop and add your playbook to the authorized devices,you will never have a Gmail issue on your playbook again.

At least I have not since enabling two step verification.

[BB_Bmore]

No, this AOL password is unique, I use it only for AOL. Also, I had just recently changed it, had no spam incidents so I deleted the account on my Playbook, added it again with the new password, and received the same notifications throughout the day to authenticate. And my email was hacked again. I'm trying everything not to abandon this email as it is pretty significant in my day to day life. If it turns out that it was someone spoofing, it may be the death of it though, but I can't quite gather how someone who is spoofing my email can gain access to my entire contact list.

Also, my wifi is secured. And I also just remembered during the first incident, I eventually lost all access to my emails through the app. It was some sort of PIM error notification that popped up along with the password one.

Sounds like you have a key logger on your computer. You might wanna find a way to get rid of it or just use a virtual keyboard for the rest of your computers life. Or just dump the blame on the playbook.

[BB_Bmore]

I use kaspersky pure. I paid close to 100$ for it and I know this does not ensure my pc will not get jammed uo by a key logger sniffer Trojan worm whatever. These things happen to everyone at some point. Today was your day. Now it's time to do some spring cleaning. Good luck.

[papped]

At least I have not since enabling two step verification.

Google's forced application passwords are actually very, very weak.... Worse than what most people would use for their standard google passwords.

[hpjrt]

I'm sorry that you're having this problem but feel compelled to point out that a less hysterical headline might have been in order.

If you've been on the internet for 12 years you have to have encountered the false use of a valid email address. The first time I encountered it was about 15 years ago and a change in anti-virus software and/or time took care of it.

I sincerely doubt that your PB has been hacked. I hope you figure out what the real problem is and report back.

[pacoman03]

I have aol mail, and occasionally have to reenter my password. No problems otherwise, though.

[freya09]

Similar thing happened to me twice to be exact on my old Yahoo! email address, using my Windows Mobile based and Android based phone. I would suggest you change your email password/s just to be sure.

Sent from my BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps using Tapatalk 2 Beta-4

[Melimo]

...Don't forget the biggest "fan boi" founded this website - CrackBerry Kevin. So you say fan boi like it's a bad thing. After multiple users told you the right thing, you insisted it's the PlayBook's fault?

Please, you have added nothing useful to this thread. I was looking for HELPFUL people to answer my questions as I am new to Playbook and was worried I may have happened upon something on my Playbook that would have jeopardized its security. Get over yourself, you're no better than the apple freaks that think their holy idol can do no wrong.

I got helpful feedback on here, but not from you. Move on.

Thanks to all else that have replied. This was really freaking me out. I'm getting to the bottom of this as I truly love this tablet, but can't shake a feeling of uneasiness with a security scare like this.

[howarmat]

thread cleaned up....enough OT stuff, either help the OP out or move on

[NakedPaulToast]

Please, you have added nothing useful to this thread. I was looking for HELPFUL people to answer my questions as I am new to Playbook and was worried I may have happened upon something on my Playbook that would have jeopardized its security. Get over yourself, you're no better than the apple freaks that think their holy idol can do no wrong.

I got helpful feedback on here, but not from you. Move on.

Thanks to all else that have replied. This was really freaking me out. I'm getting to the bottom of this as I truly love this tablet, but can't shake a feeling of uneasiness with a security scare like this.

The SPAM emails that are going to your friends account and appear to be coming from you are not a symptom of a hacked email account.

What has happened is a computer owned by another friend of yours has a virus or malware on it. This computer has your email and your friends email in its contact list.

What it does is sends SPAM from one random account in the contact list to another random account. This way the recipient is more likely to trust the email, open attachments and it to get by SPAM filters.

Your computer is not affected, nor is your email hacked. Somebody with both you and your friend in their contact list has malware on their computer.

[BerryClever]

I skimmed through this thread, so it may have been already mentioned, but you may want to just reformat your computers. Wipe out the hard drives completely (Windows/OSx/whatever operating system it is), and start fresh.

It can be a bit of a pain because you will have to reinstall everything and put all your documents/photos/etc (BACK THEM UP!) back on your computers, but there is the added benefit that the Keylogger/trojan will be gone AND it will run more smoothly (you might be surprised how much garbage (that you didn't know was there) accumulates on it over time).

As mentioned by others, there is the possibility that they masking the sender's email with yours. Now if they had your email password before and copied all your contacts, well then no matter what they have your contact list forever.

I am 99.9999999999% sure it has nothing to do with your PlayBook, but rather your computers.

If you did want to go this route of reformatting, but don't know how, I can probably find some good instructions for you that you can print out. I haven't used a Windows computer for a while, but the last time I have there are different reformats. You want to wipe your hard drive completely (it takes a long while).

[adrenaline_x]

Thank you for being helpful and not overly protective of RIM possibly having issues, CBVINH! I will have to do some investigating on hubby's work computer, as mine has been scanned and cleared.

I will

Hotmail and yahoo and aol or horrible for this.

if you clicked on a link from and email recently and then all of sudden all your contacts got and email with a link and so on, you were just hit with a spam bot.

My mother just had this happen for the second time in the past 3 months.

Change your passwords on your email accounts as a precaution and move on.

Better yet, move you email to GMAIL. Its doesn't suffer theses issues.. Atleast not that i have seen in the past 5 years (Network Admin).

The password prompt is supposedly a bug in the os, which i'm yet to see myself.

[tumblingdice03]

I understand you feeling that way after what happened to you,plus being new to Playbook and seeing the request to authenticate or re enter password but I can vouch that is a normal issue with some email accounts as mentioned above. I get it with my Yahoo I believe and also sometimes with my ISP provided email, mostly when leaving and then reconnecting on wifi. Not always but sometimes. I feel certain you weren't hacked via Playbook but just bad timing to make you feel that way. Good luck to you with your email issue.