Microsoft boosts Hotmail password reset security

Microsoft on Monday added new security features to its Windows Live Hotmail Web mail service to help users regain control of hijacked accounts.

Citing a trend of spammers seizing legitimate accounts, Microsoft said it was kicking off new techniques to sniff out compromised Hotmail accounts, as well as giving users more ways to reclaim inboxes snatched by criminals.

Microsoft first touted the features last May, before it rolled out a massive Hotmail upgrade.

Rather than rely on an alternate e-mail address and a single secret question-answer pair for resetting an account password, Hotmail now lets a user set one or more "trusted PCs" or a mobile phone as proof that she is the real owner of the account, said Dan Lewis, a senior product manager with the Hotmail team.

:story: Full story: Computerworld