Help!... someone invaded and corrupted my gmail account

[Wil Ferch]

Title says it all... almost. I have an important gmail account that I use for both business and pleasure. Gmail is good in that they ( themselves) have a stout system and there is little chance of them losing servers or memory. They have good backup.

Anyway..some malicious types went in and corrupted my gmail account. "He" ( me) sent an "emergency" request to ALL my embedded email addresses ( 1300+)...saying he ( "me") was in London, lost my passport and wallet, and was asking for money. This guy used a similar sounding gmail account that was instead a "ymail" account if you look closely. I was fielding calls all day from my friends and business asociates asking if this was legit or not. Some have said they are sending me return emails asking the same thing. I can just imagine the inbox to this acount...once I regain access.

My son-in-law, IT type ( who I asked or help)...found out that this guy is actualy answering email responses from my email list of people...and is now doing so FROM MY REAL GMAIL account ! So not only has he corrupted my account, he has taken possession and control too !. Trying to contact google/gmail has been done via their normal problem reporting system, but getting someone there to talk to is impossible. I am locked out of my account and can't use it.

The perp made a mistake..and I have his IP address and know who his ISP provider is. He's in Malaysia. I sent an email to his ISP web site, asking them to stop this guy.... but no luck so far in any response.

What else can we do?. Is this a reportable issue to the authorities?. Which?

Anything ? ..

[stomachmonkey]

He's changed your password?

[Superman]

That was my question. Can you get into it now? If not, your only option is to walk away and repair the damage. If you can get in, then change your password now.

[zippy_gg]

Elect me as your president in 2012 and I promise I will pass a bill that mandates emasculation without anesthesia for all convicted scammers!

[Wil Ferch]

Maybe I wasn't clear....no..I can't get into my account and my password dosn't work. Through a friend I asked him to enter gmail on HIS computer...and he inititiated a "How to Recover Your Account" protocol that Gmail has set up for stuff like this. They say it will tke at least 24 hours. So....either the perp ran a "brute-force" random number generator for a long time to find ( and then change) my password..OR...the Gmail recovery protocol is doing the same thing locking things up so I can't get in.

Would love to "speak" to someone at Google/Gmail to simply get the account "locked"...so the perp cannot continue having dialogue with my list ( as he is doing now) pretending to be me and asking for money. Don't know what other damage he may be doing.

[stealthn]

Sad to hear, you may be one of millions that had they're email compromised lately due to some advertising/marketing firms being hacked.

Make sure if you use a common password on any of your other accounts you change it ASAP, as that's where they will be looking next.

Bob

[Evans, Marv]

Somethnig similar happened to my hotmail account back in the first part of this year. Somebody/something started sending out messages under my account. I'd get delivery failures from people I didn't send messages to and find out they had received something supposedly from me. I reported it to the abuse line for hotmail and the next thing I knew, my account was locked. I went through their channels to try to get it cleared out and back up and running. It actually worked. In about 3 weeks I had the account back with the thing cleared out. I was really surprised, since I had heard and expected no real results. I established a Gmail account and had all my previous hotmail emails and contacts sent to it for a backup. Really a PITA!

[wdfifteen]

I've encountered a couple of web sites that request your email password. Facebook does it, and also an outfit called shoppybag or something like that. Ostensibly it is to automatically add your contacts to your account with them so they can invite them to join. I expect that it's going to become more prevalent with scammers as more people get comfortable giving their password to a trusted name like Facebook.
CNBC had a good program about Google this evening. Did you know that if you sign in to Google they store your searches along with your name for 18 months before "anonymizing" it? And then it's not really anonymous because your IP address is still connected to the searches. Yikes!

[rusnak]

Wil, something very similar happened to me this weekend. I got in there and change my password pronto. A lot of those emails failed to go through.

I think Facebook is 99% of the problem, and I joined that site only a few days ago.

[Rick V]

I have several different email accounts, just to keep things like this from happening, or at least to keep the damage small.
Biz and personal are separate. Facebook is horrid for security and since they don't feel the need to fix it, I closed my account. I know too many people who have had issues from there.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Rick V

I have several different email accounts, just to keep things like this from happening, or at least to keep the damage small.
Biz and personal are separate. Facebook is horrid for security and since they don't feel the need to fix it, I closed my account. I know too many people who have had issues from there.

+1
I have five email accounts. Biz, personal, one for placing orders at businesses that I trust (Amazon etc), and one for signing up for "free" accounts at game sites and one for facebook. I also have a separate savings account that I fund my paypal account through.

[Grady Clay]

This happened to Bruce Anderson a few months ago.
Same ‘trick’ “Help, I’m in London….”
Difference being that Bruce was just home from surgery so I knew he wasn’t in UK.
It took a day or so for his ISP to get things back to working.
He thinks it was via Facebook.


Here is the text of Wil’s fake message:
“ Hi,
Apologies for having to reach out to you like this, but I made a
quick trip, to London,United Kingdom and had my bag
stolen from me with my passport and credit cards in it. The embassy
is willing to help by authorizing me to fly without my passport, I
just have to pay for a ticket and settle Hotel bills. Unfortunately,
I can't have access to funds without my credit card, I've made
contact with my bank but they need more time to come up with a new
one. I was thinking of asking you to lend me some quick funds that I
can give back as soon as I get in. I really need to be on the next
available flight.

I can forward you details on how you can get money to me. You can
reach me via email or hotel's desk phone, +447045749898
waiting for response.
Thank You
Wil Ferch”

Perhaps some of Britt Pelicans can go see who answers the phone.


Best,
Grady

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I've encountered a couple of web sites that request your email password. Facebook does it, and also an outfit called shoppybag or something like that.

There is absolutely ZERO reason for a company to have the password to your email account. Zip, zero, ziltch, nada. If they say that is the only way to authenticate a user, they are full of BS.

No wonder Facebook is the source of many hacks and attacks -- the crooks know that Facebook has such records, so they go after them for such information.

Some simple rules to live by:
- Never give out your phone number or any personal information including passwords, even if they ask for it. IF they say they need it, ask them why. If they absolutely "need" this information, tell them, my phone number is "911." and password is "You are a crook."
- Never write down any of your passwords.
- Never give out any of your passwords. EVER.
- Never use a word or phrase that can be easily associated with you as a password.

-Z-man.

[myamoto1]

We just got an Xbox for Christmas and part of the on-line sign up asked for our G-mail password. I don't have a g-mail account, so it didn't matter, but why the F does MS need my email password for a video game?

[Wil Ferch]

Well..today some good news / bad news......

I was able to recover my gmail account. It is fully active. I can even go back 2 weeks to view what is in my "trash" mail. Inside the "Trash" folder are lot's of good-intentioned contacts who are emailing "me" back ( back to the hacker) with some interesting back-and-forth dialogue. The "perp" even gives the address and wire-transfer (?) details where to "send the money". Would like to share this with authorities...although so far no entity has shown much interest in follow-up, not even the perps' ISP provider in Malaysia who I contacted.

Bad news....my historical record of emails going back 3-4 years...some of which I re-use for templates, or keep for archival work..... is all lost.

Anyone know if my pre-hacking ( date) emails can be brought back or resurrected somehow?

[Z-man]

May I now suggest the following:

1. Check your email account now to ensure there is no email forwarding turned on (IE: email you receive being automatically forwarded to the hacker)

2. Check to make sure there is no other email associated with or linked to your email account.

3. Scan your computer for viruses. You may have a virus on your system which records what you are typing. If that is the way the hacker got into your account, he can likely do the same thing again, if you are still infected.

4. Change your email password - again.

-Z-man.

[Superman]

MF'ers should be executed at dusk. Not kidding.

[gtc]

Are you guys aware of the Gawker security breach a few weeks ago? Someone stole their user list with emails and passwords - anyone who's ever commented on a Gawker website. Many people were using the same password on gawker's servers as they were on the associated email accounts.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Z-man

There is absolutely ZERO reason for a company to have the password to your email account. Zip, zero, ziltch, nada. If they say that is the only way to authenticate a user, they are full of BS.

Facebook clains they do it so they can invite all your friends to use their service. I didn't want to let everyone in my address book know I have a Facebook account. I just opened it because you have to have a personal profile before you can get a business page.

[Jagshund]

Originally Posted by Superman

MF'ers should be executed at dusk. Not kidding.

At dusk? Why the wait?!

I recommend everyone use passwords that include numbers, symbols and letters in no particular order. And don't keep them on your computer.