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For our Thanksgiving surprise today, we were Hacked in our e-mail!!! Our hotmail account, which we've had since the days of Web-tv, about 10 years, got it....Now, Ernie admits that he may accidentally let the culprit in by answering an e-mail that he thought was legit from MSN/Hotmail... but, nope hackers had done such a good job designing it and got us....right down to changing our password, etc.... So we spent the morning making a new e-mail account, and working with the Hotmail folks in retrieving our contacts and folders from the old account and notifying family and friends....Geez, what a mess... How we found out was when our DIL called at 8am to say, "I didn't know you could drive your camper to Oxford, England?" Well, things are somewhat better, but still waiting for the Hotmail folks to see if they can retrieve the contact list and folders...they say it can take up to 24 hours and my guess, with the holiday, it will probably take 48 hours... Anyways, lesson learned.....don't answer e-mail unless you know for sure who it is....duh....and change your password every once in awhile....thank goodness we only pay a couple of bills online and those passwords are changed (mandatory) every 90 days....see, and people think I'm nuts for still sending out my bills by the old-fashion way....via US Mail...

Okay, enough of my woos of the day....Hope everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving....

Oh Lori, sorry to hear this happened to you. I got too a few months ago. Later I will tell the whole story, maybe will help someone avoid it. Bummer!

Lori, that's the most common worm out there. The danger is - if it's still in your computer - it will get your list from the new account. I got one once and fixed it simply by changing my password - then I forget what I did with my computer to make sure it was gone. Sorry it took me a few hours to get your new email address in here so you could post. I was sleeping

I got your phone message before I checked emails - and laughed and laughed at the one from you asking for money in Oxford. Was one of the best hacking emails I've gotten Gave lots of us, I'm sure, a chuckle. I would have almost thought that you sent it as a joke. But I knew better - you would have said something at the end!

Sorry you went through this. Pain, it is.

Sorry to hear this. It is very frustrating.

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, Lori. What a mess!! I'm always leery on using the computer to put in my personal info. No matter what the sight! If they can hack into the Pentagon and White House, why do we think we are safe??

Happened to me recently too. I think I have it cleared up. Thankfully, I don't pay bills online or do any banking of any kind. Have no idea how he got in; I am very careful about what I open.

Don't know if this will really work but is worth a try - can't hurt anything
I too was hacked - main thing is to keep changing your password - only problem is I can't remember new passwords - let alonge one every couple of months.

How to protect your e-mail address book
A computer repairman says this is like having gold.
This is a good thing!

I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in its simplicity.

As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer
it heads straight for your email address book,
and sends itself to everyone in there,
thus infecting all your friends and associates.
This trick won't keep the virus from getting into your computer,
but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further,
and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system.

Here's what you do:

First, open your address book and click on
'new contact,'
just as you would do if you were adding
a new friend to your list of email addresses.

In the window where you would type your
friend's first name, type in 'A'.

For the screen name or email address,
type AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA

Now, here's what you've done and why it works:

The 'name 'A' will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1.
This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.

When it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA,
it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.
If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address),
the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here's the second great advantage of this method:

If an email cannot be delivered,
you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately.

Hence,
if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to
AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA could not be delivered,
you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system.
You can then take steps to get rid of it!

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Here are some sites regarding this Worm-Stopping Hoax:

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.asp

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/virus-control-hoax.html

http://antivirus.about.com/od/virusdescriptions/a/emailtip.htm

One of your best protections is a really difficult password - combination of symbols/numbers/letters and mixed case.
My good friend, who is her company's HIPAA privacy and security officer, yelled at me for having all my personal information out on Facebook. I have since removed all that information.

Get yourself a virtual credit card for ALL online purchases.
Lock your account at all 3 credit reporting agencies.
DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR SSN. (Our doctor's office requires us to fill out a form at EACH visit, including a space for SSN. That one is left blank by me and George...they DO NOT need that information laying around on a dozen or more little pieces of paper. Same with our dentist.)
I have taken G's medicare card out of his wallet and keep it in the safe, which is bolted to the floor with carriage bolts, until needed.

Am I paranoid? Maybe. But our credit card has not been stolen again (twice) since I implemented these procedures.

I know this post was about email worm security. However, I think we can all use occasional reminders about internet security.

Regards,
Your Paranoid, Yet Hopefully Secure, Forum Sistah

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My cousin had to change her Hotmail acccount too on account of some problems she was having. Didn't say what.

I keep telling friends that they need to get a good security program installed in their computers. Some just go with basic Norton, which does not help with Spyware, Malware and the other goodies that can infect a computer.

I have Spyware Doctor in my computer. It's one of the best AntiVirus/Spyware programs I have ever used. Nothing gets past it. It is constantly scanning my computer all the time and every email that comes in gets scanned before It's allowed in. I am notified if anything that look suspicious is trying to download. It scans all the websites, including this one and lets me know if it's safe to enter. And with their remote tech support, it's great.

I do pay bills online, but I do not have online billing. I'm still not all that crazy about doing it, but it is faster and simplier. Plus, nowdays, anybody including me can go into my computer and get any information I want on anybody out there. I did it once to me, just to see what happens and lo and behold, all my personal info is out there. So you are not safe anyplace.

Sue, we have a virus protection....Norton....right now....will change to McAfee when this runs out...we switch between them once a year and we have spyware, too....but this hacker came thru our e-mail..they get you by sending an "Official looking" e-mail....Ernie's oops....wanting to verify e-mail password....lesson learned...never, ever do that...E-mail providers already have that info..we've been told by e-mail provider that Norton, etc. do not protect against that when you answer then back ...But, thanks for the advice...

Carol, Ernie liked your suggestion and he's got it done..

Mitch...you are NOT paranoid, just super cautious....which I respect and give you kodos for....

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and sympathy, we're "all better" now....

I've never heard of a Virtual credit card...How do you do that?
(Get yourself a virtual credit card for ALL online purchases)
My experience has been with my drivers license & checks. When living in the mountains in Santa Cruz, our mail boxes were down on the road side...unlocked (of course)....anyway, one AM I heard this loud knock at the door & opened to find 3 men there stating they were police officers. Turns out that someone stole my DMV renewal from my mailbox, along with my supply of checks & went to a bank in Santa Cruz & tried to rob it....the person didn't even match my picture...it was crazy. Then I had an employee at Macy's steal my Macy's card (which was changed to a Macy's Visa without my paying attention to that fact...) Anyhow, to make a longggggggg story short, the guy went from San Jose all the way to San Francisco, charging on my card...got new stereo, computer, expensive sunglasses, great dinners, hotel accommodations, etc., on my card....You cannot imagine what I went through to clear/clean it all up...unfortunately for me, I had excellent credit so a very high 'limit'...never found out what happened to him...I no longer carry a Macy's card (can't afford to shop there anymore anyway)....Would really prefer to not use my one & only Visa card on the internet....Any advice would be so very much appreciated.....

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I can only speak of a Citibank credit card, although I've heard of one other large issuing bank that uses something similar.

It's a small program that you either 1) download onto your home computer, or 2) launch online (like when using a public computer). You have to have set up a login and password.

The program then generates a one-use only credit card, including your name, the number, the expiration date (ALWAYS the next month) and the cvc security code. It's all tied in to your "real" credit card number.

If a vendor needs to give you a credit, it will take a credit, but it can't be used again to charge anything. So, let's say I use it online at abcdoggytoys.com and I buy the little beast $100 worth of crap. No problem. But then later, because abcdoggytoys.com doesn't have the world's best security in place, hackers bust in and steal all their on file customer credit cards. MINE is no good. It's already expired.

You can use it for phone purchases, too.

Since our credit card was stolen online the 2nd time (and sold to someone in Italy over the Christmas holiday 3 years ago), I have NEVER not used Citibank's virtual credit card for online purchases, except our mail-order drugs (those would be the legal variety...).

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Lori, I hated McAfee - it's no better or worse than Norton. I switched to AVG's free version for a long time - now go with their paid version. BUT none of them will stop that worm - at least I've seen it get through every malware/spyware/antivirus program. Doesn't mean you can't switch - but doesn't mean it'll do any good. I switched from Norton to McAfee because Norton slowed my computer down. I actually still had a year left with McAfee when I removed it from my computer because it caused me so many problems. I have a friend with it for years who swears by it. I love AVG - even their free version. And it's recommended my quite a few IT folks.

Lots of my info is out there - I don't worry too much about it. My address isn't a home anymore - so they won't find me that way. I suppose they could steal my identity. And if they get my cc info - I'm protected from that with the cc companies, too. Now, when I boondock, I don't usually tell my exact location until I move on. Unless I'm in a group.

My computer guy recommends AVG and I have been using the free version for about 5 years. Didn't have any problems until I installed the latest version which is 2011 I think. Now my computer freezes up when it does a scan and can't do a complete scan. I tried reinstalling it but that didn't help. I need to email Shawn and ask him about it. Don't know why I didn't think of that when I started having problems.

Martha