Random musings and activities of a 30 something mom, potential sprint triathlete, vegetarian, dog and cat owner, and a evolving urban homesteader just trying to do the right thing in life for my daughter and the world around us. If the blog seems random, it's because life is and hits us all at 100mph.
Monday, February 01, 2010

PostHeaderIcon I was hacked.

Monday, February 01, 2010 | Original Musings by Jen | Edit Post
So today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  One of my emails accounts were hacked.  Yes, all 500-and-some contacts in my address book got an URGENT email stating I was in Wales, had been mugged, and needed $2000.  An oldie but a goodie.  Just to think, last week I won the UK lottery.  Maybe I was mugged because someone thought I had all that cash on me?  Ok, my seriously bad attempt at finding humor in this situation.

It went from bad to worse, and I could go on to explain how I'm locked out of ebay (temporarily suspended), Facebook (hopefully temporary), gmail (hopefully fixed tomorrow), and a couple of other sites.  But I won't.  What I will explain is some common sense rules I ignored.

My IT guy in corp HQ suggested changing all my passwords every 60-90 days.  I need to come up with an organizational system to do this.  I realized I hadn't changed my email password in over 3 years.  I'm not sure it would have prevented today's attack, but it would have been a line of defense.

I'm locked out of facebook, why?  It was the same PW as my email account.  How to solve that in the future seems pretty self explanatory.  Again, a new organizational system needed to keep track of a unique password for every site I visit.

Bank accounts.  Thank G-d I used a different PW for all my financial institutions.  I went ahead and changed those passwords too, called CS and asked for a fraud alert.  I'm already thinking not all my financial institutions need the same password.  I'm starting to see a trend here.  Following me?

Overall, I could go into it, but you've heard the warnings.  No longer is it a friend of a friend that it once happened to.  It happened to me.

I don't open emails from unknown senders.

I don't click on links that I'm not sure about.

Attachments to emails get run through a virus scan.

So, how did this happen?  No clue.

Ebay was nice enough to provide me with the IP addy of the person who changed my ebay password.  It belongs to an anonymous proxy server/service (?).  I was told that means this person can't be found.

So, dear hacker who ruined by day, made me cry, has locked me out of facebook, and overall my week a hell (and it's only Monday).... I have a message for you.  I even put it in a heart to show you how much I care:

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Quotes as I come across them......

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it last forever.” ~~~Lance Armstrong

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I like running because it's a challenge. If you run hard, there's the pain----and you've got to work your way through the pain. You know, lately it seems all you hear is 'Don't overdo it' and 'Don't push yourself.' Well, I think that's a lot of bull. If you push the human body, it will respond." ~~~Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers general manager, NHL Hall of Famer. (Will-Weber's "Voices From the Midpack" chapter.)

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.~~~Denis Watley

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. ~~~Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

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