The funniest thing I’ve seen today

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
@

 @grahamcluley.com
 / grahamcluley

I’m indebted to @bobmcmillan for tweeting about this and bringing it to my attention. It certainly brought a smile to my face.

A dude called Mesmero has posted a request for a coder on GetAFreelancer.com. Nothing unusual in that, of course. After all, many people and small businesses find contractors that way for specific programming jobs.

No, what raises an eyebrow is that he’s after someone who can hack into a Hotmail account for him. And he’s prepared to pay up to $250 for the right coder.

Hotmail hack job

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Don’t be fooled into thinking that this sounds a bit shady. It’s all totally above board.

Mesmero writes:

"A very close friend of mine's hotmail account has been hacked, the culprit changed the password by guessing rightly the "hotmail password reset - secret answer" page. IF anybody out there can change and reset the password I would be very grateful indeed."

So far one person has offered to do the job for $150.

Of course there’s no chance at all that is really criminal activity, right? Ahem.


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and hosts the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Mastodon, or drop him an email.

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