My Gmail was Hacked

Hi Everyone

This post is not about expats living, but I would like to share with all of you something that happened to me last week as I think it is important and that everyone can learn something from it.

Thursday Sep 3 was my husband's birthday. Our kids have already started the school year, so we had all the morning for ourselves and we planned some fun activities.

But things don't always go as planned - Like every morning, even before the kids go to school, and because I am addicted to my e-mails, I opened the computer and entered into my email box.

To my surprise I found an empty mail box - Contacts - 0, Inbox - 0, Outbox - 0, labels - 0.

At first I thought it was a bug in google, as there were some alerts about this lately, so I immediately asked ny hunsband if his gmail is working? His answer - Yes, but I received a strange email from you.

"How are you doing? Hope all is well with you, i am sorry that i didn't inform you about my traveling to England for a Seminar.


I need a favor from you as soon as you receive this e-mail because i misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money, and other valuable things were kept i will like you to assist me with a loan urgently. I will need the sum of $ 2,800 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home.

Sorry to bother you i will appreciate whatever you can afford to help me with, if you could help me out that would be very much appreciated. I will of course pay back every penny within a reasonable period of time.

Kindly let me know if i should send you the details to use when sending the money through Western union.

Your reply will be greatly appreciated.

--
Sharon Gilor
E-mail - sharon.glor @ gmail.com
Website: http://www.expats-moving-andrelocation-guide.com"


Well, as I recall, I did not plan to go to any seminar in England. And if I did I would sure tell about it to my husband.

What the f...?

Furthermore, my signature at the bottom of the mail was changed - The I was deleted from my surmame, and an hyphen was removed from my web site address.

And my gmail - remained quiet - no new mail arrived to my inbox.

I called Rebecca, a good friend of mine, and asked her if she had received a weird mail from me? Rebecca said yes and that she sent it back to me with question marks. But ... Her mail never reached me.

I called my brother in law (an engineer and computers expert), who confirmed that he also got the same mail, and then he continued "There is a big scam on the internet lately and many mail boxes have been hacked".

How does it work?

Hackers break into a mail box, send a mail similar to the one that was sent from my box, change the signature, empties the mail box from all mail messages (incoming and outgoing) and from all the contacts, and finally change the mail settings so that no new incoming mails can enter the mail box.

This strategy buys the Hackers some time - Until the person whose mail box got robbed understands what has just happened and before he starts to minimize the damage the hackers can continue with their scam. Anyone who "buys" whats written in the e-mail, and clicks on the signature in order to respond arrives to another mail box, which was opened especially for this fraud. This is where he will be given the bank details and will be asked to transfer the money to there.

Of course not everyone click on the signature to answer an email: Some will click on Reply, others will take the address from their contacts, some will ignore the mail and think it is a pointless joke or a spam, others will call to ask what was happening, and some will send a mail through the website, through social networks (Facebook, Twitter, linkedin) or to another mail address.

But - Imagine that the hackers broke into dozens of mailboxes, and at each mailbox at least five people believed the mail, wanted to help with a small amount, clicked on the signature and received instructions to where to send the money.

Wahoo ... Those Hackers can steal thousand of dollars.

What a Nerve!

I was furious and felt like my house was robbed. A sense of rage and helplessness.

What did I do?

First thing - I changed my password immediately. I also put a reminder to myself - to change the password every few months.

Second - I went to the mailbox settings to correct the signature and the URL of my website, and updated the option - your mailbox can receive e-mails.

Now the real mess began - Tons of mails arrived, and the telephones were ringing constantly.

Now If you remember the beginning of this post - it was my husband's birthday, we planned a quiet morning with fun activities.

Well, we have decided to change our plans - we went to a quick breakfast and then returned home to minimize the damage.

What did I do?

To send an email to all my contacts and explain them what happened I couldn't because my contacts were deleted. So I wrote a mail explaining the sequence of events and to all those who sent me mail with questions about what was happening, I sent the mail. To those who called me on the phone I explained what happened and asked them to send me a mail so I could start collecting mail addresses of my contacts.

In addition I ran a message in all my social networks, I canceled my credit card (for safety), and updated my bank.

At the same time I sent a message to google explaining what has happened to my mail box and requested that they will restore my mailbox.

After several hours I received the following answer from Google - "Unfortunately the information you transfered is not enough and we can not verify that you are the account owner. We suggest that you fill out additional forms or reply to this mail with additional information. Of-course I chose to reply their e-mail but until today I recieved no response from Google.

I have no idea if google will agree to restore my mailbox, but I sure hope they will do it. Not only that I lost valuable information but my name was misused. The best way to handle this is to send all my contacts (especially those who still do not know me well) a mail explaining the sequence of events. I also believe that it is only proper to warn all my contacts about this malicious deception so they won't be tempted to transfer money.

What did I learn?

Do not forget to change the password of the mail every few months

To use another mail box designed to store all important mails.

Keep all address and contacts outside the mail box

Prepare a separate folder to keep all information that is vital and important.

Finally - I also learned who knows me well and can tell that I will never ever send this kind of mail.


I would love to hear your opinion about this

Sharon