Wednesday morning I woke up to an email from one of my sisters asking if I had sent her a link to a Viagra sales site, because she didn’t need it. What? I hurried to my inbox to see what was going on, and sure enough it was true. The "from" email address was indeed mine, and it was going “to” the email addresses in my contacts. Half asleep I thought how did this happen?Through the day, I received more emails from friends about the different dirty emails they received from “me”. So instead of removing and washing the recliner slipcover as planned, I spent the morning sending out apology emails to the victims.
At this point my thoughts began to spin. I hoped that they just hacked into an old email account and that was all. A friend suggested I go through all the security measures and processes immediately, for Gmail go to Account Security. This was email hacked, and when you think about how much info is in your emails, it is endless and very scary.
It also led me to a couple of suggestions for everyone reading, 1) take your time to investigate in the security section of every online account you own, 2) consult with an identity theft company, for example IdentityHawk. This company will check into your online activities analyze the identify security risk for you. They also help monitor the health of your identity and keep score so that they will know when you are at risk of identity theft.
The moral is to know everything you can about how to protect all your accounts. Don’t ever say never, and don’t procrastinate about doing the important things first. Your priority should be your security. I learned this lesson good and hard last year.
We live in a very modern world, and are very vulnerable by having these modern conveniences. The one thing that is growing right along with the number of websites online is identify theft. If you are not sure you have done everything you can, you should consult with a professional about identity theft protection.
Surfin' Saturdays, Weekend Bloghop, Saturday Stalk
8 Comments
I am so sorry to hear your email got hacked. In this high tech age we have to constantly be on guard against such things.
ReplyDeleteI receive this sort of email from your email address, but I really thought it was you so I open it..
ReplyDeleteThen immediately delete it. Normally, I would spam it, but that would give you no way to get into your account..
This is why you need to get a Contact Me form, so your email won't be visible to those rotten people!
The moment I get such an email from a friend I know it's not from them and they need to know.
ReplyDeleteIt is scary.
I hope it's now fixed and you didn't have to change accounts.
This happened to one of my friends, but her email address was sending emails out saying her name is sending you a free chocolate. Then when you open the email it asks for your gmail name and passcode.
ReplyDeleteStopping By From Totally Tuesday Hop
New Follower
Having Fun Blogging
mrsphilipswithonel@gmail.com
http://mrsphilipswithonel.blogspot.com/
@SquirrelQueenYes, along with privileges there are much responsibilities.
ReplyDelete@Icy BC I understand the concept of having the contact form and I think you are right. However, it didn't happen to the email address that I listed on the blogs. :-(
ReplyDelete@JamericanSpiceThanks Colette, I think I will have to do that too from now on. Because in my case I couldn't see what or who they sent it to.
ReplyDelete@MrsPhilipswithoneLYes, I heard all kinds of weird things. Like them asking for money and such...I think I know how it originated, but not sure yet.
ReplyDeleteHave a thought? Please leave a comment here, and I will return as soon as possible. Thanks - If you have a minute, why not check-out the sibbling of Self Sagacity.com Blogger Broadcast. Extra Links = Spam = Delete.