New install, signed into someone's email automatically.

jonnyb · Nov 6, 2023

So the other day I had a laptop that I bought on Ebay that had Windows 10 on it. This laptop came from Arizona and I live in California. I did a USB fresh install of Windows 11 and deleted all partitions before I started. There were 3 total with one large C drive. I hit New and it created a smaller partition. As soon as got Windows 11 up and running I had to go to my Yahoo mail for an important email. I went to Yahoo, Yahoo Mail and it had a person that I knew in my town with his name was in the sign in box. I hit next and his password showed up. I looked at the password with the eyeball and saw the password. I went into the Inbox and it was all this person's stuff. He is a chiropractor up here that I know. I signed out and cleared out all cookies to get rid of his name on this computer. This was very science fiction to me because I never even knew his email address and I had did a fresh install. This was never his laptop either. Anyone know what happened here?

xrobwx71 · Nov 6, 2023

This is an odd one. I can't even begin to guess how this happened.

1st thing I would do is tell this Dr to change his Yahoo password.

I want to get some other opinions on this, specifically from persons trained in PC Security on our Staff.

Go to the Yahoo logon page as you did before if it happens again, grab a screenshot please. Please obscure his password.

@DR M
@Corrine

jonnyb · Nov 6, 2023

Ok, so I decided to look at all my other computers today. I got on my laptop with Windows 11 and just looked at the passwords on Edge and my wife's Amazon password was on there. She never uses this laptop so she thought. Maybe she did at one time. It sits on the kitchen table and she always signs out of her Amazon.
I also found another website with a password that I never used but looked legitimate. It looked like one of my customers that I had in the past year.

I then went on my other desktop with Windows 10 on it. On Edge's password list I had my Microsoft email listed twice. It is an @.live account. It had my real password and then had a duplicate .live.com account and it had a customer's password on it as well that I recognized as someone I worked with 8 months ago. I of course I deleted that account and kept my live.com email's password on the list. It also had my bank listed as some weird name like citabt-something. This is not my bank. It looks like Cita-Bank doesn't it. I don't use that bank but the password was for my real bank. You can click on these websites right in the password list and it will go to that account. Well when I clicked on the citabt-something.com it did not go much of anywhere and said that the website was wrong or somethin.
In Settings and Devices it said that a device is also connected to this desktop computer. It looked like a computer that I sold a year ago. I removed that computer from that list.

I mean you wonder who out there has your password if I had four passwords from other people.
It is totally science fiction to me.

I talked this chiropractor a day later and told him the story and he just looked at me in amazement and thanked me for deleting the password, email and cookie cleaning.
Boy it makes you wonder who is watching us don't it?

Anyhow I totally erased all my passwords from all my computers and change the important ones the next day. I have 9 computers.

DR M · Nov 7, 2023

If you have the option Offer to save passwords in Edge, then every password you use on a computer is saved. Passwords don't appear in a system "out of the blue". The fact that you recognized all the saved passwords confirms that. And here comes the question: why are you using others (customers') passwords? They give you their passwords to use them? Sorry, but I didn't understand.

As to the devices, these are connected to your Microsoft account. If you are using 2 or 3 or 4 computers under the same Microsoft account, they all appear in your account.

In case you are concerned that something is wrong with your system and you need a malware check, you can go to the Security Arena Forum, open a new topic and post the requested logs.

jonnyb · Nov 7, 2023

DR M said:
If you have the option Offer to save passwords in Edge, then every password you use on a computer is saved. Passwords don't appear in a system "out of the blue". The fact that you recognized all the saved passwords confirms that. And here comes the question: why are you using others (customers') passwords? They give you their passwords to use them? Sorry, but I didn't understand.

As to the devices, these are connected to your Microsoft account. If you are using 2 or 3 or 4 computers under the same Microsoft account, they all appear in your account.

In case you are concerned that something is wrong with your system and you need a malware check, you can go to the Security Arena Forum, open a new topic and post the requested logs.

Yes on my home computer I have my passwords saved. I recognize others passwords from their computer when I am working with them. Sometimes we have to reset other's passwords so I can see that they are customer's passwords. Like for example a woman has a web.tv email and she is the only one that I know has that. I know her system. I know that we set her password to her name and address so I recognize that easily. Why it showed up across town on my computer I have not a clue. She's never been to my house and I never used my email at her house. Strange.
No I don't use other's passwords. Mine are complicated on my system.
As for the doctor's email being signed into my computer is even more strange. I never even knew his email address otherwise I would have him in my contacts which I never had. I checked that in all my email accounts. I just use three accounts, a Gmail, a Yahoo and an Outlook.live account. Even if I did have his email, how would it show up signed in with a password to a new install of Windows 11.

DR M · Nov 7, 2023

I don't have any other explanation.

Have you thought of my suggestion to post at the Security Arena Forum?

Corrine · Nov 7, 2023

DR M said:
If you have the option Offer to save passwords in Edge, then every password you use on a computer is saved.

In addition, if you have sync on that will result on favorites, passwords and other data being available on the new install. See Change and customize sync settings in Microsoft Edge.

DR M said:
Have you thought of my suggestion to post at the Security Arena Forum?

I agree with DR M's suggestion.

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New install, signed into someone's email automatically.

jonnyb

Member

xrobwx71

Administrator

jonnyb

Member

DR M

Sysnative Staff, Security Analyst

jonnyb

Member

DR M

Sysnative Staff, Security Analyst

Corrine

Administrator,
Microsoft MVP,
Security Analyst

New install, signed into someone's email automatically.

jonnyb

Member

xrobwx71

Administrator

jonnyb

Member

DR M

Sysnative Staff, Security Analyst

jonnyb

Member

DR M

Sysnative Staff, Security Analyst

Corrine

Administrator, Microsoft MVP, Security Analyst

Administrator,
Microsoft MVP,
Security Analyst