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Last week’s post on what to do if your email is hacked (see, Hack Attack! What to Do if Your Email is Hacked) unfortunately has become the second most popular post ever on The Wonder of Tech. That’s in spite of the fact that I only published the post last week. I wish no one needed information about what to do when their email accounts are hacked, but sadly that’s not the case.
Just yesterday, Google revealed that Chinese hackers attacked Gmail accounts, obtaining access from many users, including senior US government officials. (See, Targeted Cyber Attacks an ‘Epidemic’, BBC News, June 2, 2011) The attacks were sophisticated “spear phishing” schemes that fooled Gmail users into thinking they were logging into their Gmail accounts when instead they were entering their passwords into a fake Gmail login page.
As the incidents of email hacking become more widespread, The Wonder of Tech wonders, has your email account ever been hacked? Have you ever clicked on a malicious link that caused problems? Vote in today’s poll and let us know!
If your email account was hacked or you clicked on a malicious link in an email, what happened? If you haven’t been hacked yet, how do you protect yourself? Let us know in the Comments section below!
* Image by Christopher Baron
My Hotmail account was hacked a couple of years ago and I simply changed the password. The spammy email sent out in your name are more of a problem. I still get some occasionally from an account that I think is no longer used. I wish they would make it pop3 but it does now link with Outlook which is better.
Hi Mike, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, changing my password on my email account prevented hackers from getting into my account again.
Thanks for your visit and your comment. 🙂
Mine has never been hacked but my friends was recently. I started getting junk from him knowing full well he wasn’t sending it. But my account wouldn’t let me notify him. They now consider him spam. When he gets back into town I’ll have to give him a call. I hate when that happens to others. People have nothing better to do with their lives.
Great post Carolyn and I KNOW why that was the most popular post. People just want to know what they can do when this happens. Thanks for sharing all those great tips.
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I am so sorry to hear that your friend got hacked, though the hacking of email accounts is becoming quite common.
A lot of people are reading the Hack Attack post coming from search engines. I’m glad they are finding The Wonder of Tech, but I wish it was under better circumstances!
Thank you for visiting, commenting and tweeting!
Looks like more of your readers are lucky! But email hacking is more of an annoyance (its not like hacking your credit card acct or bank acct, which could be much more serious).
Email hackers usually get hold of your entire addressbook and send bulkmails. IMO, the mail services should have a check for this. Because how many times you normally send a mail to all contacts in your mail?
GMail is usually way better in identifying spam, Yahoo not so much, and yeah, who cares for hotmail/aol anyways? 🙂
Nowadays, the email hackers have turned to Facebook for spreading links. Few days back a cat video went viral, and today I saw another catvideo link (I am certain it was a spammy link) spreading on Facebook. FB has ways to go before a solid spam-check algorithm is in place.
Hi iRewardChart, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Email hacking is certainly annoying, but in the case of the hacking of US government officials’ Gmail accounts, the results might be more than annoying. Hopefully those hackers didn’t get any vital information, but even if they didn’t, that won’t stop them from trying again.
I like your idea of email accounts screening for emails sent to all contacts. You’re right, how often does that happen? Seems like that’s a sure fire indication that a spammer is at work.
I agree with you, Gmail is more thorough about catching spam, though Gmail had this nasty habit of sending notices of Wonder of Tech posts to the spam box of subscribers. Silly Gmail!
Thanks for your visit, comment and tweet!
Last week I unknowingly clicked on a malicious link. It lead me to a “solution” site which seemed so legitimate I almost willingly gave my cc number. Yikes. I’m 99% sure I would have (thinking my computer was toast unless I did), except I had read your post a few days before.
Instead I took a deep breath, walked away for a few minutes and then researched on a different computer the fatal error messages I was receiving. It was a total scam, but it had taken over my computer. Several hours and lots of trial and error research solved the issue. Whew.
I learned from the experience, but it’s an awful realization that you’ve been had. I feel sorry and sad for the people who create these vicious infections.
Lex, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I am so glad you avoided being fooled by the malicious link and that The Wonder of Tech was helpful in alerting you to the danger.
You were very wise to walk away, calm down and research the site on a different computer.
I’m glad everything worked out well for you. Thank you very much for your comment which will help others to avoid this trap as well!
I’m not aware that my e-mail has ever been hacked, but I learned so much from your post.
I had never changed my password. I never knew about sending a group e-mail in batches of <10 to avoid being flagged as spam. I never knew how others sent batches of e-mails addressed to them yet I and others received it – very clever!! A very thoughtful and informative post! Thank you Carolyn.
Hi Maya, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I am glad you were able to learn so much from the Hack Attack post even though your email has never been hacked. Using a BCC in group emails is very important if you don’t want to reveal your friends’ email addresses to others.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
My email has not been hacked (not yet). It would be a lot worse than if my website got hacked. I don’t have a lot of personal emails and information that they can steal. But, I talked to a friend of mine that got his email hacked. He said the worst part was that a porn email was sent from his account to all his contacts, both businesses and friends. That was just horrible. And he had to explain to them all that he wasn’t the one who did it.
Hi Jens, I’m glad to hear that your email hasn’t been hacked yet, but I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s email getting hacked. I would hope that the receivers of the hacked emails would figure out pretty quickly that your friend didn’t send those emails!
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
As you have seen from previous comments, I really don’t have any cool toys or gadgets. We have a personal laptop at home my wife won’t even let me touch.
All my gear is provided by my corporation (laptop and crackberry) which is mobile and I bring it home with me every night.
The point of the rambling dialogue is, our corporation has a very sophisticated security system in place. When I come in and power up it usually cleans everything up, but there has been a few bumps.
IT has never come to me and said don’t go there, don’t do this and they know how active I am in this arena (and actually encourage it).
It’s definitely out there; it is the one thing that takes the enjoyment out of the internet. Who thinks of stuff like that, huh?
Good morning and good to see you.
Hi Bill, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! It sounds like your company has a very effective IT Department that keeps you protected from hackers. Every company should be focused on this now as hackers are becoming increasingly aggressive.
I don’t know why annoying hackers do what they do, but the hackers who are going after US government officials and contractors and credit card companies are much worse than annoying.
Thanks so much for your visit, comment and tweet!
Well Carolyn!
I’ve never have such kind of problem yet, and never even clicked some link.
but one of my friend got his email hacked, and it was night mare for him, and hotmail people didnt help even after we gave them a lot of proofs that we own that mail 🙁
Regards
Hi Usman, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m sorry that happened to your friend, especially when he didn’t receive any assistance from Hotmail to restore his account. I’m thinking your friend probably has switched to another mail provider such as Yahoo or Gmail.
Thank you for your visit and your comment.