CYBER LOSER

Hey! I got hacked! The struggle is real. It happened to me, and it can happen to you. And if my hacker is reading this right now, karma is a b***h, baby, and I hope an anvil falls on your head.

It started before Christmas, when I lost access to my Twitter account. At first, I thought it was an administrative problem, as my phone had to be repaired, and I lost the Twitter app, and when I tried to reinstate it, I couldn’t access my account, and so I inadvertently created a new one blah blah blah OMG this is so boring. Stay with me: the story picks up.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and by that I mean the Rogers IT people and the Twitter help desk, could not help me figure this out. This should not have been such a big deal, but my Twitter account is verified, and I have over 6 thousand followers, which is actually quite modest by some standards, but I didn’t/don’t want to lose them/you. Nonetheless, I let it go for the time being, as we were going on vacation.

Then, the day I left for Portugal, I could not access my personal email. Again, I thought it was some sort of server glitch, and resolved to deal with it when I got to my destination. To make a long story longer, our flights were weather delayed, we missed our connection, and ended up making pit stops in Munich and Zurich before touching down in Lisbon (4 countries in 24 hours! I’m SUCH a world traveller!) When we arrived, I checked my text messages on my phone, and this popped up:

Creepy and scary. John’s email was also hacked. The hacker also said he has access to our flight and hotel bookings. Of course he wanted money to restore access to my email and various accounts, and of course I graciously declined. But I was worried, especially as I was out of the country. So when I went to get some euros out of the airport ATM, and my card was declined, I quite understandably flipped out. John, ever the voice of reason, suggested I call the bank, which I did, and they assured me that everything was fine, and that perhaps the ATM was malfunctioning. Which was the case. But still.

This hacker also knew, and pointed out, that this was not the first time my information had been leaked. A while back, I received one of those phishing emails, written in horrible english, advising me that I was being spied on through the camera on my computer, and that they knew which “spicy” websites I visited, and if I didn’t pay up, video of me “enjoying” said spicy websites would be sent to my friends and family. This is absolute hogwash, but even if it wasn’t, I would not have cared. Apparently I’m too shameless to effectively blackmail.

In any case, I’ve regained control of my email, and I’ve changed the passwords and security settings on every single online account. Twitter is still missing, and may be a lost cause. I don’t know whether the hacker is going to strike again. I do know that it’s not personal, and that this loser probably has no idea who I am. In January of this year, over 700 million unique email ID’s were leaked; yours could easily be among them. You can find out by going here:

https://haveibeenpwned.com/) In the mean time, change your passwords to something complicated and obscure, and do it frequently. Stay off spicy websites, or if you can’t, put some tape over your camera. If you’re hacked or phished, NEVER PAY UP! And if you are a hacker, and this is what you do for fun and profit, you are an utter slime ball and should crawl back into the hole from whence you oozed.

CYBER LOSER

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