Email for authentication

Many sites online are starting to use email as a type of identity authentication but this only works if your email hasn’t been compromised too.

A Pittsburgh girl found this out when her Facebook account was compromised by a person who put up vulgar posts. She tried re-setting her password only to find that she couldn’t get into her email either. Eventually Facebook deleted her account but that was after weeks of someone pretending to be her online.

Researchers such as Stuart Schechter of Microsoft have done some interesting work looking at how to get back into compromised accounts.