FTN password notice

“Members getting their FTN and e-mail accounts hijacked is not a new phenomenon. It has been happening for a long time. We usually monitor account hijacking and disable compromised accounts, as a security measure. Then, when the members join support to claim their accounts, it has been our practice to restore the accounts to their rightful owners. This is a tiring and time-consuming work for members of staff. Even last month, up to 150 FTN accounts were hijacked. This happened because accounts at some other sites were compromised. The passwords on such sites were stored in clear text and they got stolen. Members who had used the same password on FTN and other sites, got their accounts compromised. We secured those accounts and restored majority of the accounts to their rightful owners. Other than this incident, there are also random incidents of accounts getting hijacked because the members did not use a strong password for FTN or for their e-mail account. There are also few incidents when members try to trade or scam and when we detect this and disable their account, they will come to support claiming that their FTN or e-mail accounts have been hacked.

We have secured our site as much as possible. It’s the responsibility of the member to keep their accounts and e-mail addresses safe. We have decided not to restore random hacked accounts any more unless under exceptional circumstances. Such compromised accounts will remain disabled.

To keep your accounts safe, create strong passwords.
Create an unique password for each site. In other words, do not use the same password on multiple sites. This includes your e-mail accounts.

//. Staff”