No really, she is. Who the hell uses a Gmail password that is very, very similar to flower123? Her, that’s who. I wasn’t exactly surprised to find out that her email account was hacked. It happened on May 27th, the day I was two and a half hours away in New Jersey for a work conference. I got a text from a friend of mine (I’m not quite sure how her email address wound up in my mom’s Gmail contacts) who was concerned about my mom being in London without a passport and needing thousands of dollars to get home, and a phone call from our pastor’s wife who wanted to make sure that my mom really wasn’t in London without a passport and in need of thousands of dollars in order to get home!
*sigh*
The hackers changed her password, and she never set a recovery email, so she had to email Google’s tech support department with her account details and all in order to have the password recovery instructions sent to my email. I set her up with a new password, and we thought that was the end of it. But apparently not, because today she told me that all of her new email was going straight to her trash can, and she couldn’t figure out why. At the time I was busy, but when I logged in tonight I saw that the hackers had set up a filter that enabled her Gmail account to forward a copy of all of her incoming emails to another account (one of theirs, presumably) and delete the originals. UGH. Thank god she had nothing more revealing or potentially security-threatening than a receipt for baby shower invitations that she purchased for a friend.
Now I’m sitting here hoping and praying that I didn’t give out any revealing info in any of my emails to her. I can’t imagine doing so, since most of our emails are about family stuff and weight loss (those emails always trigger Google’s ads for best weight loss products) and general catching up; but just in case I’m going to change all of my passwords as well, and keep an extra close eye on my PayPal account balance and bank account activity.
Moral of the story? USE DIFFICULT PASSWORDS. Use a combination of letters and numbers, and throw in a symbol or two for good measure. Never use your name, anything similar to your online alias or email address, and for god’s sake, do NOT use normal words written out (like “blue crayon” or “big hippo”). Also, change passwords regularly, and do not use the same password for all of your accounts!
My name is Jenn, and I'm a 27 year old married and babied chick. In addition to a husband, a seven year old daughter, and a five year old autistic son, I also have four cats, three hermit crabs, two frogs, a few fish, and one snorty little Pug. I work from home doing a variety of writing and even some web design. I love blogging, digital photography and web design. Kitty.nu has been around for several years. Once upon a time it was home to my personal blog (you can find that over at 
omg that is nuts! i’m always making sure my mom keeps up with her passwords and stuff.. she always wants to write them down on paper >_<
nimil’s last blog entry: blah blah blah