Today, this fish ended his perfect streak of not biting on the lure. I was hacked on Twitter because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the phishing attempt. I’ve contacted @TwitterSupport, but the issue remains unresolved.
Last night. I am permanently banned. Not sure what I did, except that I started reporting all MAGA accounts that called for violence, civil war, and shooting the "libs," etc. Someone found a tweet I wrote a few days ago about being exhausted from the ignorance of MAGA and wishing this cancer would die, and reported it to Twitter. Apparently, that's enough to get me a lifetime suspension. Meanwhile, MTG and Rep. Massie (and many others) are screaming about war and posing with weapons. I had 300 followers, compared to hundreds of thousands, but my written tweets are more potent. I do not get it.
Man, I came so close today to falling for an fake email from PayPal about a "suspicious" payment. It even had an email address that "looked right" (my usual way to check is to mouse over the address in the email file and read with the real address is - they usually use the email address they stole) as coming from Paypal. I only spotted it when I googled the Paypal site for the Customer Service phone number I was being asked to call to correct the "fraud" and it wasn't the number in the e-mail.
You can nail them most times by checking the actual email address, but as my experience today shows, the assholes are learning their mistakes.
My son is a cyber security specialist, thank GOD! Just this morning I received a strange email from PetCo "confirming my order of dog food". I don't order dog food from PetCo. So, instead of clicking on the "view order details" button in the email, I told my son and he took over my laptop and checked out the email. I, meanwhile, used my phone to go to PetCo's website and looked at my order history. Sure enough. That dog food ($130.50) was really there on my order history but being shipped to someplace in GA. My son called Wells Fargo to let them know what happened and to stop the debit card payment while I contacted PetCo to report it as a fraudulent use of my card.
In speaking to the person at PetCo's fraud dept., I told her my son is IT cyber security and that he told me this had to have been at their end as I had done nothing crazy with my card info nor had I clicked on a phishing link. She did then admit that just a few days ago PetCo had had a data breach and were still investigating that. She said there were a number of accounts that were compromised, mine being one of them. It would have been nice if I had known about this before with maybe a heads up email from them, etc., so I could have gone in and changed my password.
Well, my son is now changing me over to some sort of program that uses gigantically long complicated passwords and keeps track of them.
I'm 75 and I've always gotten by with my same four passwords I've used for years and years for various things. Money related was one PW, online selling sites is another PW for two sites, another one for my social media accounts, etc. It always worked just fine all this time especially since I am horrible at remembering something like a different password.
It's all so depressing knowing there are people out there who are doing these things. Really stressful and frustrating.
I hope yours is sorted out quickly and fairly painlessly, Steve. Mine, thankfully, was nipped pretty quickly this morning and WF is taking care of everything for me and has already put the money back into my account while they investigate. The only real inconvenience is that my debit card was immediately cancelled and I'll have to wait for a new one to get here next Tuesday.
It was the week before Xmas last year. I was distracted ordering last minute gifts when I got an email that purported to be from Netflix, saying my account had been suspended because of trouble with my payment going through. I had a recurring problem with Citibank on just this issue so it never occurred to me it was a pfishing scheme. Plus I had a zoom movie class coming up in January and needed to have access to that account. "Click here" it said, to reinstate your account. I did and promptly fell down the Rabbit Hole, entering a nightmare world that had none of the charms of Alice's. I was in a hurry to get back to my Xmas tasks and gave them everything they asked for, including--if you can believe it--my SSN. I woke up immediately and realized what I'd done but it was too late. I googled "Help I've been hacked" and followed instructions. It didn't save me six months of sheer hell, trying to get everything sorted. Remember when I was a kid setting up elaborate snakes of dominoes, tapping the one at the head and watching, fascinated, as they all fell. That was fun. This other was not fun. It set off a cascade of consequences that seemed never to end. I think I've dealt with the last one. I'm holding my breath.
Reading about all the others who fell is cathartic. I'm 90 and had just assumed I was experiencing the onset of dementia. Instead of blaming all the sharks out there, I've been castigating myself!
Be skeptical always, especially when it comes to your bank, your creditors, or bills. That's when I confirm by checking directly with the real sources. And also block/report their attempts. Check closely the return addresses - there may be a dot, comma, extra letter difference between legitimate and scam, and especially those alerting you to a scam (i.e. you've been hacked, please call or respond by clicking on this link - Don't!!)
More..... I shop at Amazon. I NEVER open email from Amazon. I always go through my account on Amazon website and see my orders; even if it is from a carrier like UPS or FEDEX, etc.
Since the beginning of e-mail phishing I have FORWARDED the scammer's e-mail to "NetCraft", an established Company whose raison d'être is: "We protect the world's leading brands from cybercrime and fraud." Go to NetCraft.com for info. (I report scammers to help combat fraud on the elderly or infirm, (aka to scammers as "the easy targets").
I have had the same e-mail address since 1996 (because it is a great name "SanFrancisco at ...). So I'm probably on thousands of actual scammers' e-mail lists. Even so IN 27 YEARS I HAVE NEVER BEEN SCAMMED! Why not?
Well, I follow one set of self-imposed rules:
- On phone calls if I don't recognize the number, the display says "unknown" or something similar, I never ever never never answer the phone. If the call MIGHT be that important call I'm expecting, I don't answer. If it is legit they will leave a message.
Note: My phone rule is not unique. I read that most Americans no longer answer the phone on the billions of marketing/scam calls placed EACH DAY.
- Bonus Tip: For businesses like Amazon or whatever, where they require a phone number I give them my low cost second line mobile number ($10 monthly), that's on a phone where the ringer is 24/7 on DND/silent mode. So I'm not distracted, the phone display is face down. I call that my "junk line." End result: monthly junk/scam calls on my primary/main phone = TYPICALLY ZERO (0).
Bonus Tip: you don't need a second line like I have. I reap other benefits by having a second mobile number, but in the alternative you can purchase a Google or Skype phone number, for example.
Side note: I suspect by now my main phone number on scammer call lists is designated "do not bother, waste of time, he's an asshole."
- I ignore all e-mails and text messages that say I have a bank, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, etc.: payment, refund, credit, delivery, bank deposit, or cash. Instead, I forward e-mail phishes to NetCraft.
- I ignore all of the above, even if the e-mail or text is from someone I know, or my bank. (From various sources that information is easily collected by the bad guys). Instead, if I think it might be legit, I SEPARATELY contact the person or business to research their purported dispatch.
Bonus Tip: The easy way to live by this rule, ask yourself if other than a game of Monopoly, has a bank, for example, ever e-mailed or called you to say, there's a "Bank error in your favor, collect $500?" Same with other business-themed scams, I assume no one has ever contacted you to say the business made a mistake and they have money for you, or nowadays, "We need to send you back the $1500 iPhone."
- Unless it is obvious a retailer I'm dealing with, I never never never click a link that's provided in an e-mail or text message, where pressing it (purportedly) takes you, for example, to a bank's website or to PayPal/VenMo. Instead, I open my browser and log on to the website manually.
That's it for now. Sorry for the long chatty comment. No wait, I'm not sorry. Don't know why I said that. Never mind.
I had some problems with Twitter locking me out of an account I don’t use much. Thought I wanted one for work, one for me. Anyway I got in touch with them and it took some time but it magically appeared again. They and only they hold the strings. I was kicked off for 12 hours bc I said TFG was hanging himself with words. Something he said. Lame but I learned any violent word even used in a metaphor ican be damning.
Yes, and like you, I caught the tells a moment too late. I was able to change my password in META before the prep program scrambled my account info. AI could easily map cookies in your account that would make it possible, with a few questions, to verify you. Google sort of does this but Twitter is tougher because the attacks are more sophisticated and they think you should just verify the "real" you.
A friend nice told me. Choose a password phrase of 20+ characters that you can remember. The time for a hacker to unravel it is so long that the hacker will simply move on. It works for me.
Back in April I fell for an email from Spectrum (who I had recently switched to). Gave them information. Should have known better. Had to shut down my bank accounts for a month. Luckily, they got nothing. Now I have two-factor authorization on all my financial sites and have locked all three credit history accounts. Hopefully we learn well from these experiences. They're getting better all the time. No more Nigerian princes or misspellings.
I received an email for your zoom event from a Stephen. Just left it there, unopened. Around the same time, and am sure not related to the one mentioned, upon completing an online transaction on a secure site concerning a completely different matter, I got two different notifications confirming it. I will only say that the very "creative" email was hilarious. Left it there, unopened. Some years ago, I was among a large number of patients of a hospital where our records had been hacked. I was officially notified by the administration of the hospital, by mail, that an investigation had ensued and was assured that the issue had been controlled. I have received during the past two years very suspicious phone calls, which I just hang up to. And there have been very unsettling small things which do create worries in a world of hackers and very dark operatives. You have, obviously, sinister individuals roaming close by. So far, I have not stopped writing, defending what I define as the fundamental right that is freedom of speech. But I think it is about time that something is done with the public platforms that we use, with the assurance that our right to free speech remains protected, but protected at the same time from criminals and powerful players that can do us harm. Intellectual property? I worry about that very much.
This advice is from my brother who was a honcho IT guy for a state Dept of Public Safely (i.e., state police)
1)Always use two-factor authentication if it’s available.
2)Use passwords that are 20 characters long. Best if they’re random, but okay if they’re an unusual phrase you can remember
3) Don’t keep your passwords anywhere on your device. If you ever get locked out, you won’t be able to retrieve them. Best to keep them written on paper and stored somewhere not prone to discovery.
I try to watch for phishing scams - and I usually manage quite well- but not always. One time I had just contacted someone about a problem and then I received an email that said "click on this link" and I did :(
Not yet, though I recently went through a series of events that was like all the scams we read about: text message referring to suspicious activity on my account with a link to click to call the bank (I didn't); then a call to my land line from a person with an accent; some discussion but no questions about my password, a reference to a credit card, etc. The reason I was sure it wasn't a hack was because *I* did the suspicious activity on the credit card, realized I had done something wrong on the transaction and cancelled it. Checking my account every day as usual, so far so good.
Yes! I received an email from Twitter today that my account was compromised EARLIER THIS YEAR. The rat bastards are letting me know in August. You can imagine my current attitude.
Yes hacked into 10/21/21 lost two professions and a couple of thousand so called friends never able to resolve someone else destroying my livelihood on FB. It’s actually been a blessing in disguise they have all gone way down hill as soon will be obliterated if we are all lucky!
Hi Steve, sorry to hear this. You probably have heard all this before but never click a text message link and for email, only if the link is not encoded (not gobblygook), copy and paste link to ANSI/ASCII text file to verify lack of hidden characters. Better yet, always initiate a connection to a site from your browser manually. You are a high value target so folks are incentivized to go the extra mile to trick you. In the end, a compromised Twitter account is not the worst thing that can happen, I would invest in a good and reputable security solution - you’re worth it!👍
So far I have not been hacked or caught by a phishing phisher. Because I recognized phishness about the text message or the email. On a daily basis I get phishing messages from “Amazon, EBay, Netflix, Banks, FEDEX etc etc.” I go to each website and get their report phishing email. And then I have a ridiculously fat email file that I put all the “Report Phuckin Phishing” File,
Sorry Steve. I got caught once myself. It happened on my corporate PC - big mistake. Good (but embarrassing) thing was the phishing email was sent by Corporate IT Security as: 1) a test to see how exposed our system was; and 2) a means to teach us low-life fish what not to do. I was fairly embarrassed walking the halls not knowing who knew I fell for it and thank gawd I didn’t give Russia the keys to the system, but I never fell for it again. I have to admit, their approach was effective at teaching all 6K of us what to look for since they’d toss another line in the stream every few months.
It is very painful being hacked. I was hacked a few years and somebody typed a message to me with my social security number and the names and addresses of all my siblings. I bough Norton to protect my identity. As far as Twitter, I have a regular account and looked at my profile, and there is NO personal information there. So, if I am hacked, Twitter will have NO way to know I am who I say I am. If you have a professional account, there might be some possibility of returning control of your account back to you. If that fails, Maybe you can open a new account and protect it with a strong passwork etc.
So upon reading all the comments I get that one should use 2 factor authentication. But Steve how did someone hack your Twitter? Did they figure out your password? Does twitter have 2 factor authentication ? Should I unfollow you?
The last couple of days, the Russian hackers have been doing overtime everywhere. So it is perfectly ok to fall into it this time. Just wait and try and you will resolve it. They either will be gone or the networks and the tech giants will close the loop in the next couple of days or weeks. When they invade they do it with the widest of net. They are very patient. When people feel invincible they move in, and hack or misinform or attack psychological targets. You just have to pick up and move on. You will definitely feel overwhelmed and not realize that you have done some heavy duty combat and now they retaliate, that’s all.
Last night. I am permanently banned. Not sure what I did, except that I started reporting all MAGA accounts that called for violence, civil war, and shooting the "libs," etc. Someone found a tweet I wrote a few days ago about being exhausted from the ignorance of MAGA and wishing this cancer would die, and reported it to Twitter. Apparently, that's enough to get me a lifetime suspension. Meanwhile, MTG and Rep. Massie (and many others) are screaming about war and posing with weapons. I had 300 followers, compared to hundreds of thousands, but my written tweets are more potent. I do not get it.
Man, I came so close today to falling for an fake email from PayPal about a "suspicious" payment. It even had an email address that "looked right" (my usual way to check is to mouse over the address in the email file and read with the real address is - they usually use the email address they stole) as coming from Paypal. I only spotted it when I googled the Paypal site for the Customer Service phone number I was being asked to call to correct the "fraud" and it wasn't the number in the e-mail.
You can nail them most times by checking the actual email address, but as my experience today shows, the assholes are learning their mistakes.
Yes. Complex passwords 12+ chars random. Password Manager. Two Factor Authentication.
My son is a cyber security specialist, thank GOD! Just this morning I received a strange email from PetCo "confirming my order of dog food". I don't order dog food from PetCo. So, instead of clicking on the "view order details" button in the email, I told my son and he took over my laptop and checked out the email. I, meanwhile, used my phone to go to PetCo's website and looked at my order history. Sure enough. That dog food ($130.50) was really there on my order history but being shipped to someplace in GA. My son called Wells Fargo to let them know what happened and to stop the debit card payment while I contacted PetCo to report it as a fraudulent use of my card.
In speaking to the person at PetCo's fraud dept., I told her my son is IT cyber security and that he told me this had to have been at their end as I had done nothing crazy with my card info nor had I clicked on a phishing link. She did then admit that just a few days ago PetCo had had a data breach and were still investigating that. She said there were a number of accounts that were compromised, mine being one of them. It would have been nice if I had known about this before with maybe a heads up email from them, etc., so I could have gone in and changed my password.
Well, my son is now changing me over to some sort of program that uses gigantically long complicated passwords and keeps track of them.
I'm 75 and I've always gotten by with my same four passwords I've used for years and years for various things. Money related was one PW, online selling sites is another PW for two sites, another one for my social media accounts, etc. It always worked just fine all this time especially since I am horrible at remembering something like a different password.
It's all so depressing knowing there are people out there who are doing these things. Really stressful and frustrating.
I hope yours is sorted out quickly and fairly painlessly, Steve. Mine, thankfully, was nipped pretty quickly this morning and WF is taking care of everything for me and has already put the money back into my account while they investigate. The only real inconvenience is that my debit card was immediately cancelled and I'll have to wait for a new one to get here next Tuesday.
It was the week before Xmas last year. I was distracted ordering last minute gifts when I got an email that purported to be from Netflix, saying my account had been suspended because of trouble with my payment going through. I had a recurring problem with Citibank on just this issue so it never occurred to me it was a pfishing scheme. Plus I had a zoom movie class coming up in January and needed to have access to that account. "Click here" it said, to reinstate your account. I did and promptly fell down the Rabbit Hole, entering a nightmare world that had none of the charms of Alice's. I was in a hurry to get back to my Xmas tasks and gave them everything they asked for, including--if you can believe it--my SSN. I woke up immediately and realized what I'd done but it was too late. I googled "Help I've been hacked" and followed instructions. It didn't save me six months of sheer hell, trying to get everything sorted. Remember when I was a kid setting up elaborate snakes of dominoes, tapping the one at the head and watching, fascinated, as they all fell. That was fun. This other was not fun. It set off a cascade of consequences that seemed never to end. I think I've dealt with the last one. I'm holding my breath.
Reading about all the others who fell is cathartic. I'm 90 and had just assumed I was experiencing the onset of dementia. Instead of blaming all the sharks out there, I've been castigating myself!
Be skeptical always, especially when it comes to your bank, your creditors, or bills. That's when I confirm by checking directly with the real sources. And also block/report their attempts. Check closely the return addresses - there may be a dot, comma, extra letter difference between legitimate and scam, and especially those alerting you to a scam (i.e. you've been hacked, please call or respond by clicking on this link - Don't!!)
I have an IT son who has trained me not to bite. So far, so good
My heart aches for you and the nightmare
You’re experiencing….I’m not on twitter
Facebook instagram or Any sight ONLY
YOUR SiGHT !!!! 💜
More..... I shop at Amazon. I NEVER open email from Amazon. I always go through my account on Amazon website and see my orders; even if it is from a carrier like UPS or FEDEX, etc.
Good suggestions. Let us know what you finally do, and sorry about that.
Since the beginning of e-mail phishing I have FORWARDED the scammer's e-mail to "NetCraft", an established Company whose raison d'être is: "We protect the world's leading brands from cybercrime and fraud." Go to NetCraft.com for info. (I report scammers to help combat fraud on the elderly or infirm, (aka to scammers as "the easy targets").
I have had the same e-mail address since 1996 (because it is a great name "SanFrancisco at ...). So I'm probably on thousands of actual scammers' e-mail lists. Even so IN 27 YEARS I HAVE NEVER BEEN SCAMMED! Why not?
Well, I follow one set of self-imposed rules:
- On phone calls if I don't recognize the number, the display says "unknown" or something similar, I never ever never never answer the phone. If the call MIGHT be that important call I'm expecting, I don't answer. If it is legit they will leave a message.
Note: My phone rule is not unique. I read that most Americans no longer answer the phone on the billions of marketing/scam calls placed EACH DAY.
- Bonus Tip: For businesses like Amazon or whatever, where they require a phone number I give them my low cost second line mobile number ($10 monthly), that's on a phone where the ringer is 24/7 on DND/silent mode. So I'm not distracted, the phone display is face down. I call that my "junk line." End result: monthly junk/scam calls on my primary/main phone = TYPICALLY ZERO (0).
Bonus Tip: you don't need a second line like I have. I reap other benefits by having a second mobile number, but in the alternative you can purchase a Google or Skype phone number, for example.
Side note: I suspect by now my main phone number on scammer call lists is designated "do not bother, waste of time, he's an asshole."
- I ignore all e-mails and text messages that say I have a bank, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, etc.: payment, refund, credit, delivery, bank deposit, or cash. Instead, I forward e-mail phishes to NetCraft.
- I ignore all of the above, even if the e-mail or text is from someone I know, or my bank. (From various sources that information is easily collected by the bad guys). Instead, if I think it might be legit, I SEPARATELY contact the person or business to research their purported dispatch.
Bonus Tip: The easy way to live by this rule, ask yourself if other than a game of Monopoly, has a bank, for example, ever e-mailed or called you to say, there's a "Bank error in your favor, collect $500?" Same with other business-themed scams, I assume no one has ever contacted you to say the business made a mistake and they have money for you, or nowadays, "We need to send you back the $1500 iPhone."
- Unless it is obvious a retailer I'm dealing with, I never never never click a link that's provided in an e-mail or text message, where pressing it (purportedly) takes you, for example, to a bank's website or to PayPal/VenMo. Instead, I open my browser and log on to the website manually.
That's it for now. Sorry for the long chatty comment. No wait, I'm not sorry. Don't know why I said that. Never mind.
I had some problems with Twitter locking me out of an account I don’t use much. Thought I wanted one for work, one for me. Anyway I got in touch with them and it took some time but it magically appeared again. They and only they hold the strings. I was kicked off for 12 hours bc I said TFG was hanging himself with words. Something he said. Lame but I learned any violent word even used in a metaphor ican be damning.
Yes, and like you, I caught the tells a moment too late. I was able to change my password in META before the prep program scrambled my account info. AI could easily map cookies in your account that would make it possible, with a few questions, to verify you. Google sort of does this but Twitter is tougher because the attacks are more sophisticated and they think you should just verify the "real" you.
Sorry about that. Adam Jentleson https://twitter.com/AJentleson/status/1557053742117167106 recently dealt w. that too.
I was hacked on Facebook ( twice). I resolved this by deleting my account. No big loss.
Steve -
1. Change password
2. Use 2 factor login always
Keep a master list of passwords protected by a password you can’t forget (tell me if you want ideas and we can discuss on Signal)
Hope this helps
A friend nice told me. Choose a password phrase of 20+ characters that you can remember. The time for a hacker to unravel it is so long that the hacker will simply move on. It works for me.
i don't know, i do know i paid you so i can comment and enjoy your writings and then yesterday found i can't get on your site.
Back in April I fell for an email from Spectrum (who I had recently switched to). Gave them information. Should have known better. Had to shut down my bank accounts for a month. Luckily, they got nothing. Now I have two-factor authorization on all my financial sites and have locked all three credit history accounts. Hopefully we learn well from these experiences. They're getting better all the time. No more Nigerian princes or misspellings.
I received an email for your zoom event from a Stephen. Just left it there, unopened. Around the same time, and am sure not related to the one mentioned, upon completing an online transaction on a secure site concerning a completely different matter, I got two different notifications confirming it. I will only say that the very "creative" email was hilarious. Left it there, unopened. Some years ago, I was among a large number of patients of a hospital where our records had been hacked. I was officially notified by the administration of the hospital, by mail, that an investigation had ensued and was assured that the issue had been controlled. I have received during the past two years very suspicious phone calls, which I just hang up to. And there have been very unsettling small things which do create worries in a world of hackers and very dark operatives. You have, obviously, sinister individuals roaming close by. So far, I have not stopped writing, defending what I define as the fundamental right that is freedom of speech. But I think it is about time that something is done with the public platforms that we use, with the assurance that our right to free speech remains protected, but protected at the same time from criminals and powerful players that can do us harm. Intellectual property? I worry about that very much.
This advice is from my brother who was a honcho IT guy for a state Dept of Public Safely (i.e., state police)
1)Always use two-factor authentication if it’s available.
2)Use passwords that are 20 characters long. Best if they’re random, but okay if they’re an unusual phrase you can remember
3) Don’t keep your passwords anywhere on your device. If you ever get locked out, you won’t be able to retrieve them. Best to keep them written on paper and stored somewhere not prone to discovery.
If I didn't initiate it, I delete without opening, then I delete it from "Delete", and then I make sure it is not in my laptop trash.
Today, I saw a follow request on Twitter from "Kevin Costner", but there was only one other follower..... there's usually a tipoff.
My hotmail account was hacked and I just erased the account.
How did you know you had been hacked?
I try to watch for phishing scams - and I usually manage quite well- but not always. One time I had just contacted someone about a problem and then I received an email that said "click on this link" and I did :(
Not yet, though I recently went through a series of events that was like all the scams we read about: text message referring to suspicious activity on my account with a link to click to call the bank (I didn't); then a call to my land line from a person with an accent; some discussion but no questions about my password, a reference to a credit card, etc. The reason I was sure it wasn't a hack was because *I* did the suspicious activity on the credit card, realized I had done something wrong on the transaction and cancelled it. Checking my account every day as usual, so far so good.
I was banned for short time periods for using bad language, but that was it - i haven't stopped using it but haven't been banned again
Yes! I received an email from Twitter today that my account was compromised EARLIER THIS YEAR. The rat bastards are letting me know in August. You can imagine my current attitude.
Agree
Yes hacked into 10/21/21 lost two professions and a couple of thousand so called friends never able to resolve someone else destroying my livelihood on FB. It’s actually been a blessing in disguise they have all gone way down hill as soon will be obliterated if we are all lucky!
I worked with Apple Care to get it fixed. Then they suggested Malware and it’s been good
🤞🏻Not yet
Hi Steve, sorry to hear this. You probably have heard all this before but never click a text message link and for email, only if the link is not encoded (not gobblygook), copy and paste link to ANSI/ASCII text file to verify lack of hidden characters. Better yet, always initiate a connection to a site from your browser manually. You are a high value target so folks are incentivized to go the extra mile to trick you. In the end, a compromised Twitter account is not the worst thing that can happen, I would invest in a good and reputable security solution - you’re worth it!👍
So far I have not been hacked or caught by a phishing phisher. Because I recognized phishness about the text message or the email. On a daily basis I get phishing messages from “Amazon, EBay, Netflix, Banks, FEDEX etc etc.” I go to each website and get their report phishing email. And then I have a ridiculously fat email file that I put all the “Report Phuckin Phishing” File,
Sorry Steve. I got caught once myself. It happened on my corporate PC - big mistake. Good (but embarrassing) thing was the phishing email was sent by Corporate IT Security as: 1) a test to see how exposed our system was; and 2) a means to teach us low-life fish what not to do. I was fairly embarrassed walking the halls not knowing who knew I fell for it and thank gawd I didn’t give Russia the keys to the system, but I never fell for it again. I have to admit, their approach was effective at teaching all 6K of us what to look for since they’d toss another line in the stream every few months.
It is very painful being hacked. I was hacked a few years and somebody typed a message to me with my social security number and the names and addresses of all my siblings. I bough Norton to protect my identity. As far as Twitter, I have a regular account and looked at my profile, and there is NO personal information there. So, if I am hacked, Twitter will have NO way to know I am who I say I am. If you have a professional account, there might be some possibility of returning control of your account back to you. If that fails, Maybe you can open a new account and protect it with a strong passwork etc.
Ali Moezzi
let us know if you work it out and if you don't, some techy person surely will show up here!
So upon reading all the comments I get that one should use 2 factor authentication. But Steve how did someone hack your Twitter? Did they figure out your password? Does twitter have 2 factor authentication ? Should I unfollow you?
The last couple of days, the Russian hackers have been doing overtime everywhere. So it is perfectly ok to fall into it this time. Just wait and try and you will resolve it. They either will be gone or the networks and the tech giants will close the loop in the next couple of days or weeks. When they invade they do it with the widest of net. They are very patient. When people feel invincible they move in, and hack or misinform or attack psychological targets. You just have to pick up and move on. You will definitely feel overwhelmed and not realize that you have done some heavy duty combat and now they retaliate, that’s all.
I just changed my password. After reporting the incident.
And yes, make password complex.
Again —> Signal for discussion. It’s not what it seems.
No I have never been hacked. Good luck.
Also I am anonymous so less interesting than you.😉
I came close but think I pulled up in time. See my frustration with Facebook below.
Contact Brian Krebs...let him guide you.