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Every time I go check my account's activity I see something very weird and worrying: multiple attempts to log in to my account, anywhere from 1 to 3 daily attempts. This has been going on for years.

List of login attempts

The list goes on and on, this is only the first page.

Protocol

All attempts are being done through IMAP protocol, and a proxy chain is being used apparently. I know nothing about security, IMAP, brute-force, proxy chains, etc; so I come here to ask if there's anything I can do about this to defend myself proactively.

Can I turn off IMAP? Can I set email to just accept connections from specific IPs? What can be done as defense?

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It is normal what you see. Many resources in internet get constantly login requests. This is not the reason to worry.

If you disable IMAP, there will be requests per POP3. If you disable it, too, there sill be requests per HTTPS. Besides, if you disable IMAP and POP3, you will not be able to access your email box from email apps on your smartphone.

What can be done?

  1. Make sure your password is secure. Check if it is long enough, if it uses letters in low and upper case, digits, special characters; check if it is random enough, i.e. it should not be based on some dictionary word, date etc.
  2. Activate two-factor-authentication.
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  • I'd imagine that Hotmail would also implement some kind of rate limiting or brute force protection mechanisms, making the attacker even less likely to succeed
    – multithr3at3d
    Aug 30, 2020 at 13:01

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