I still use my first ever made email address, at this point it’s pushing 28 years old. However I have a major problem. I can rarely log into it anymore. There are so many attempts to login to the account daily from whoever out there that wants to gain access that the login is normally locked out for a period of time. At this point I’ve moved everything of financial value off of it as someone did get access once, but there are still plenty of random little things I’d like to hang on to it for.
I know I can just make a new one and ditch that one as a quick solution, but I figured i’d ask a wider community if they had any insights I might not have. It’s a Microsoft account, and my windows is tied to it, but I’m pretty sure I can just migrate that to something new.
Oh, so you are Bob@gmail.com, I’m sorry
Fairly sure Gmail wasn’t around 28 years ago.
Hotmail
AFAIK consumer MS accounts don’t allow you to lock down access to a single IP. Adding MFA may help. If that doesn’t work, contact MS support and see if they can add a geolock to the account to only allow auth attempts from your country.
MS may also be able to change the email address then add your old one as an alias.
This brings me memories from when I had my @hellokitty.com email.
Have you already tried adding an authenticator / passkeys, OP? Those are the only thing I can think of.
but there are still plenty of random little things I’d like to hang on to it for.
Changing email addresses is a nightmare, I know. A lot of companies are not event technologically equipped to handle it because, as far as they’re concerned, your email address IS your account, and account numbers are not a thing. But you need to bite the bullet and get it done. That sounds like a huge security vulnerability.
It’s a Microsoft account, and my windows is tied to it
“tied to it” how? Use a local account. No Microsoft necessary. Alternatively, stop using Windows 😀
Which email provider is the account with?
Can you just forward the email? Basically use it as a mail drop.
Why not let that email get forwarded to another email account of yours ?
That is/was the plan, I was just wondering what insights people who actually know about privacy stuff would have overall. And I have been educated nicely thanks to a bunch of the folks on here.
I have an old email from when I was like 7 and signed up on a range of different gaming websites.
Now however, I use proton mail. They even own SimpleLogin, so all I do it generate hundreds of email aliases. No website know my actual email address and each mail received to these aliases, are forwarded to my actual proton mail account. Using Keepass or another password manager of choice, is a wise idea so you don’t have to remember all these accounts. Simple! Both secure, and private as it would be difficult to identify each account to an identity
