I found out that my email account (the one I ONLY use for professional related issues) was hacked. Then emails were sent out with ‘no subject’ but included a spam link. The link will either take you to a bogus website where there is a virus lurking or will automatically infect your pc.
This time – something different happened. I went to my Sent box to see who received these emails and there was no trace that it was sent. THAT was not a good sign. Now there is no way for me to go back and let those people know to delete the email.
The slime underworld of hacking is getting more clever – to my dismay.
My only recourse is to change my password and to make it something much harder to hack. I found this great site called How Secure Is My Password? (http://howsecureismypassword.net/) that let me test the strength of my password. It’s pretty cool and something you might want to try or share with others. The neat thing about this is it tells me how much time it will take a hacker to figure out my password.
Has this happened to you on Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail etc? It seems to be a regular occurrence on Yahoo and yet last week my Gmail account was targeted!
Do you know any other way to protect email accounts? Would love for you to share.
Related articles
- Hacked – Not (derdo.wordpress.com)
- LinkedIn boosts encryption after last week’s password leak (networkworld.com)
- How Your Passwords Are Stored on the Internet (and When Your Password Strength Doesn’t Matter) [Explainers] (lifehacker.com)
- How Secure is My Password?
Happily ... after retirement 
It’s horrible isn’t it! I seem to get these hacked emails from people I know all the time and more and more frequently. Greg’s was hacked…mine has not been…fingers crossed. I should change my password to something more complicated BEFORE it happens.
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seems to be a lot of that going around the past couple of weeks. Both my sweetie and I have received emails from folks we hadn’t heard from in along time that we knew right away was from a hacker. it’s interesting that when you email folks and tell them, they don’t respond!! Anyway, your password should have letters, numbers and symbols and at least one capital letter. If your password is only letters, no matter how obscure the word, it takes a hacking program about three hours of running to crack it!! Also change your password every six months instead of using the same one year after year.
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It is so bad… Once it happened me too and I all changed my everything… I am sorry to hear this dear. Love, nia
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When I get one of those emails from someone, I usually write back and tell them that it was sent – because like me, I was unaware! Ugh!
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Distrustful sort that I am, I can imagine such a password site, joyfully selling new ‘highly secure’ passwords to the spammers… >>sigh<<
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How dreadful, these people make me sick, they need to get out and work for a living.
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That’s not good.
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Hi,
I am sorry to hear that this has happened to you. I have had friends whose Hotmail account is forever getting hacked, I don’t know anyone personally with Gmail, but have read of this being hacked as well.
I have had my online email account for years now and have never had any trouble at all, I only use this particular online account for the blogs and nothing else, so their isn’t many contacts in there at all.
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How frustrating. I empathize and hope you can fix the problem very soon.
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I never open anything that has a list opf people attached to it…and only people I know for sure…If it’s somethig strange I send it straight to junk…Still can happen I know…but, I try to prevent it…also games are the worst for viruses…just buy a cd and install it instesd of downloading…~mkg
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That’s too bad. I don’t know that any of my accounts have been hacked except once: I use Gmail. At the bottom of the page, there’s a link that says «Last account activitiy … Details». When I click on details I see my own IP and stuff like that, but once I got a red warning from Gmail and someone in China had been logged in twice! No emails were sent out though.
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Three of my friends got hacked this week. One was hacked twice. I am going to check out the site. Thanks and thank you Reb, I did not know that about Gmail.
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Shawn, that was my first thought 😦 Sad that things have gotten so bad it is hard to be trusting.
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Changing passwords fairly frequently on a regular basis is a good habit, and having a good anti-spam, anti-virus program helps.
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Seems to be an uptick in hacking and spamming this week. I am only hoping that those people who get the spams from my account know enough NOT to open them.
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I agree, however it’s hard for me to change passwords – so many different accounts – here and there! Ugh!
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MargeKatherine, email me amarquette732@gmail.com and I will make a suggestion which might help.
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I would imagine that they do. However, it is good to remind them.
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