Services I had no understanding of being used against me.

First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of technical knowledge, I was backed into a corner by a complete lockout of all my accounts and devices as a result of individuals using Azure resources and a Microsoft 365 admin account. They put the Azure services into play in early 2022 and were using an old Android to access my accounts and lock me out by changing passwords.

This situation is unique because it was a homeless couple (Or so I thought) that I opened my home to in late 2021. When I had lost access to all my accounts that had been mine for over a decade I tried moving on and creating new accounts. I was creating a recovery email account for my new primary email and fell asleep before I finished. I woke to discover it had been completed, and the password was set. When unsuccessful with the .aspx recovery form I wrote it off because the account was new and I did not believe it was a danger. Maybe I finished setting it up as I drifted off and forgot.

A few weeks later I was still having issues with unauthorized access to my new primary email, and when investigating noticed the email I never had access to had been assigned as admin over my Microsoft 365 apps. I tried for a month to address the issue and failed. I was fine with not being able to recover the account but if it was not mine it had no business being admin over my personal accounts. 

I had also discovered the people in my home running a scam on Azure using my credentials from another account, and I reported this to Microsoft. There are a lot of factors that go into this and in 2022 I had zero understanding of all of it. Only when I found myself completely locked out of everything with my personal accounts being used to request and receive an EIN from the IRS, and file a fraudulent business return, and more did I really begin troubleshooting to determine the best course of action.

I was still not receiving the escalation I had requested in early 2022, and things had gone beyond too far so I created a business profile to gain an understanding of Azure services, roles and permissions, and more. Now granted when this began in September of 2024, I still had zero IT experience, admin experience or developer experience. I am still a novice at these at best in my opinion, but I have been combatting those with advanced system knowledge and developer skills the entire time.

I found developer portals that had been set up using my credentials with anything associated to me. HP for my PCs, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Norton, and more. I would be directed to update drivers with HP to a site that must have been some developer's sandbox because eventually Norton flagged all HP sites as malicious. My passwords were being scraped out of my Norton Password Vault and more. This has all been quite an ordeal since 2022, and I still do not understand most of it, but I am doing my best.

I already had the issue that it was my Microsoft account, and my problems crossed various platforms, and when I created my own business accounts to investigate I began having significant success seeing what was happening, but I cannot export the data in my head to a .csv about my personal accounts to share with 365 Business support or vice versa about my business accounts to personal support, so I am the only one that can see both sides. Cross platform communication on tickets is hard enough let alone crossing the business and personal threshold.

I had just found myself in a position that it was my best investigative option. It has been successful on my end, however communicating what the criminals were doing has been a challenge. My lack of technical knowledge and the fact I am on a Microsoft Learn as I go system makes this quite demanding on my part. The logs and screenshots from my original investigation in 2022 exist in my photographic memory but nowhere else. And I can pick out details in logs and reports that will go unnoticed and flagged as "not me" by AI". But because of my attention to detail, I see the names associated with the activity and know that it is where the fraud began.