Email Hacked Today!

Email Hacked Today!

“Email hacked today! What a day this has been.”

This is what happened to a good friend of mine today.  She had taken her boys to stay with her Mom for the day and upon arrival at work, had a call from Mom telling her to check her e-mail.

A parent from the baseball team had called her Mom and was very worried about her. He wanted to know what he needed to do.

Why would he ask that?

Well, he had received an email that said my friend was in London and that she had misplaced her wallet and he needed to send her a certain amount of money asap!

My friend’s Mom explained to the parent that her daughter was fine and was not in London. He was so relieved.  Calls came in from New York, Texas, Florida, Colorado, New Jersey and locally to check on her.

It was so upsetting to have her email hacked and her privacy invaded like this. You think you have all of the necessary security in place and then something like this happens.

On the good side, what my friend discovered, however, is that in spite of all of this, she was able to touch base with people she hadn’t spoken to in quite some time who were genuinely concerned for her.

She discovered that her friends read this fake email and just knew it didn’t sound like her at all and became suspicious.

So, tip #1 – double check your passwords to be sure they’re strong:

• If your password has an “a” in it, change it to the “@” symbol instead
• Change your passwords regularly (once per month)
• Are you using obvious pass words such as “firstname123” or “your last name 123”? (Change it!)
• Do not share your passwords with family or friends (yes, people do this!)
• Do not save your passwords in a file on your computer. Write them down on paper and store in a safe, private place.

Long story short, my friend is a little unnerved but doing well in her hometown (not London!) Lesson learned.

Take care,

Leslie