Thursday, June 24, 2010

HACKER REPELLENT...


OKAY...so I've decided that we need or SHOULD have an OFFICIAL "CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD DAY!"   Why?  I recently had my email hacked into, so if you got a story from me saying that I was mugged and to send money...well...I hope that you haven't!  It happened because I clicked on an email saying that my facebook account was disabled because someone had been trying to log on unsuccessfully.  There was no "CLICK HERE" to go to this place or that, but at the end of a fairly long email, it said..."To learn more about facebook security...


This is where everything went wrong.  I clicked the link like I so often have from facebook (I get notified about posts from someone, etc.) and the link brought me to what I thought was facebook.  I then signed in using my password and then next thing I know, I  am getting phone calls in my classroom seeing if I am here.  I had no idea since this happened from my home email and if I didn't get calls, I wouldn't have known for quite some time.  Needless to say, it's been a major headache.  This hacker had also gotten into my preferences and was having any new email forwarded to their yahoo address.  I have reported this crime to all the necessary places and hopefully, with any luck my facebook page will be active again soon and possibly something will be done...I don't hold out too much hope for that since it was from Nigeria.  Here's the letter that got me in trouble...


I do have to say that the one thing I realized from all of this was how often I use the same password.  This hacker didn't have my email password, but my email password happened to be the same as my facebook password.  I do keep a little book of passwords (hopefully, that'll never get stolen or I'm screwed!), and went through every site that I had used that same password for.  It wasn't all of them, but there were quite a few. 

I'm not sure if this special day already exists, but if not.....

June 24th is going to be my OFFICIAL CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD DAY!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Grrrr it is so bloomin annoying isn't it = my email sent all my work collegues adverts for viagra last month!!!

Artisan Beads Plus said...

It's quite unbelievable that there are people who don't think that 24 hours in a day is enough time and during those 24 hours they are trying to do the right thing, then there are IDIOTS who seem to have all kinds of time to cause problems for others in all kinds of ways! Not only this, but I got a response from someone telling me I was an F'n Loser for sending the email...I can't win!!

mairedodd said...

the bittersweet of the computer age - you know? that always tends to be what i blurt out when i hear about things as well 'why couldn't that person use their time and skill on something positive?' ... it's so stupid and sad...
i for one, was doubtful that you were in wales as i had just heard from you - and do keep that little book in a really safe place... maybe put a note in your other safe places to remind you - i always foil myself with the safe place idea...

Natalie -- NKP Designs said...

I hate that happened to you. I've seen it happen to three friends of mine. Those scammers are sneaky.

The first person I saw it happen to actually travels to Ireland every year, but I thought we didn't know each other well enough to be contacted for money. Sure enough, it was bogus.

I, too, have an password book, it's an address book and I file passwords under each letter (ebay "e" facebook "f", ect ....).

My college makes students use a 15 letter password and we have to change it every semester. And we have to use upper and lower letters and numerals and symbols, absolutely impossible to type half the time. But necessary? Yep.

One thing you can do, if you don't already know this, is to memorize a silly phrase, substitute numbers for letters like hackers do:

ice cream is seriously cold BUT I ate too much last night:

ici5cBI82mln

It makes it easier to remember.

If you knew that already, well you're ahead of all those scammers already! :)

Artisan Beads Plus said...

Thanks Natalie! I didn't think of using phrase words, but I will definitely try that. I have to come up with a couple of phrases that I can remember...like when they need your numbers in the front, or in the back, need uppercase, etc. I think since I will have time this summer, I will change my entire password system. I really never thought about it being this important until it happened to me. I also....will NEVER link to facebook or anywhere else directly from my gmail account. I guess it's kinda like making sure your doors are locked every night even if you live in an area that you don't THINK anything will ever happen!

Silver Parrot said...

Yikes! What a pain! This is why I have a hard and fast rule against EVER clicking on ANYTHING in an e-mail.

Artisan Beads Plus said...

Smart rule to have!!!

Unknown said...

So very sorry this happened to you.

Curses upon those who pray upon the the people who try to educate themselves on facebook security.