On Wednesday night, I was hacked.
OK, more appropriately, I received a weird text message with a web link, and I apparently clicked that link, not really thinking about it.
And that somehow opened the door to my gmail account, which then started sending out hundreds of emails to all my contacts.
Well that’s embarrassing.
What did I do? Well, first, I received a few quick tweets and texts, saying “oh oh, I think you’ve been hacked!” (thanks guys for being so fast!). Then I wasted no time in accessing my email account and changing my password. Then deleting all those emails, answering a bunch of emails (i.e., “yes, I was hacked. Don’t click that link. Sorry!”), etc.
Blake over at LISHost (my web hosted) even shut down my website for a few minutes once he saw that I had been hacked – Blake and LISHost is awesome, as always!
Moral of the story?
- Don’t click weird text message links 🙂
- Or – pay attention. I wasn’t.
- Don’t click those “what were you doing in this video” messages that you probably get in Twitter.
- If you get a wierd email from me or from someone else with a web link in it, don’t click it!
On my phone, I also set up Google Authenticator. It’s an app from Google that works with Google’s 2-step verification, and provides an additional layer of security when signing in. And prevents stuff like what I did last night.
Because, well, you know … it happened to me, it can happen to you, too.
Yes, an authenticator is a must. An authenticator can also be attached to a Dropbox account. Perhaps other cloud storage options as well.
Dude, this happened to me on Sunday – I hope I wasn’t the one who passed it on! I was down with flu on Monday, so didn’t get the 30 or so well-meaning “hey, girl, you been hacked” emails/FBmails/etc. *sigh* It came originally from my coworker, who doesn’t change her password, and who didn’t fix it for two days. My tablet somehow linked without me doing anything, and there she went! Glad you’re info is okay.
Cool – didn’t know about the Dropbox option. Thanks for sharing!