In 1999, a group of hackers discovered that they could enter any Hotmail account by simply entering “eh” as a password. It was fixed by Microsoft within two hours.

Tech Time Warp: Quite the Hotmail hack, eh?

You might not want to admit it, but you may still have a Hotmail account kicking around. Once your premier account—perhaps an upgrade from AOL—it may now be your throwaway address.

Once, though, Hotmail was hip—and quite a target for hackers. Hotmail and Rocketmail (later Yahoo!) were the first advertising-supported web-based email services, freeing users from ISP-tied accounts such as those provided by AOL and CompuServe. Microsoft purchased Hotmail for $450 million on Dec. 29, 1997. Prior to its Microsoft acquisition, the service had been known as HoTMaiL, for HTML. Under Bill Gates’ leadership, Hotmail became part of the MSN internet platform and grew to 50 million users by summer 1999.

Hackers exploit Hotmail vulnerabilities

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