I now know that on December 15 someone from Australia got into my account! That person probably changed all my filters so I never saw the other, more nasty email that came later and disrupted my life.
On January 7 hacked emails went out by someone entering my account from Nigeria. It was bad enough that hundreds of emails went out to close friends, but they also went to people I volunteer with as well as people my husband works with who have contacted me in the past. Luckily most went into spam files and were deleted.
But this rotten hack email also deleted all the contacts from my list. It made it impossible for me to contact my friends. The contacts just disappeared.
I had over 700 contacts because I am a long-time and dedicated volunteer. Imagine over 700 contacts. Yesterday I had well over 70 emails, phone calls and text messages telling me that I had been hacked, or asking if I had been hacked.
The amazing thing was that the first message came from my daughter who lives in Israel because her friend who lives in Holland got a weird email from me. And he was worried I was hacked! I think I love Yuval. He was looking out for me. And he is not the only one!
Because of this horrible event, I am a much more savvy Internet email user. Thanks to several of my son and my ‘IT’ friends, I now have two-step verification on my email account and a new improved password. One of my son’s friends sent me a message on Facebook, “Enabled two-step verification asap.” Yes I did. But I learned that a new password and two-step verification are not enough!!
Thanks especially to the father of one of my son’s best friends, I went into places on my email account that I never new existed. Through text messages, he walked me through my email and helped clean up my account. I think he deserves an award for doing good deeds. Since there were times I had no idea what he was telling me. Like this comment, “In 2-step auth, make sure you don’t have mysterious app passwords setup.” What? But I go it done.
I now know to check my recent activity. That is how I found out where the hackers came from to my account.
I also learned that after your email is hacked, you also need to go into you settings and check every tab: Filters, Forwarding, Accounts and Imports. But it also depends on what email server you use. Each one is a little different.
Whoever hacked my account had put filters on so that I would not know and could not see the email he was sending out from my account. He had also enabled POP and IMAP, which allowed him to share my account as if he was a client. So he could send out emails and also be forwarded my emails. They are looking for financial information. I do not keep that in my email. So, I do not think he got much and so he went phishing from my account.
If you do not reset your settings, the hacker has unlimited control over your account. So do not stop at just changing your password!
I learned from another friend, after I realized all my contacts are now GONE, that I can back them up on an Excel spreadsheet. That will be my newest job, once I restore more of my email addresses. I found out from a California cousin that Google has a ‘restore contact’ listing. And I was able to restore my contacts as they were a week ago. Thank Goodness for that message. I had been slowly restoring one by one. Now all 737 are back!!! Thank you Diyi!!
I called my bank because there was one email asking if I still wanted to use this email account. And I did not know if the hacker had responded to that, because among the things he did was make it so that if he opened an email, it still looked as if it had not been read. In any case, the bank was fine. So I am okay with that. I have a friend who this happened to and it was a disaster.
I had to reset my home computer, my Iphone and my little laptop. I am hoping I can open my work email without aggravation when I go back in, as it is also a gmail account.
To be honest I resent these hackers. They have cost me hours of time to fix the mess they made. I love having email, but there are so many nasty people out there looking for easy money and to make life miserable. I guess I should also recommend that you have different passwords for every account. I do, which probably also saved me some hassle.
All of my friends have been supportive in my anguished response of, “so sorry.” I did put a message on Facebook since I could not email anyone. One cousin sent me the following message: “No apology necessary. it’s not your fault. It was the evil-doers! I was notified this morning by Google that two attempts to log in to my google account were thwarted because the locations were suspicious….Lagos, Nigeria and Slidell, Louisiana.I, too, have changed my password and have two-step verification. ” So I guess I can be happy I am not the only one!
But one friend’s comment did make me laugh: “You mean you are not stranded and without money? OMG…I just sent you some flowers via Western Union since I was nervous sending you money. Just kidding…did not even send flowers.”
Thanks, I needed a laugh. Because being hacked by people in Austrailia and Nigeria did not make me smile at all.
zicharonot 
Thank you for sharing, even though it was a yucky experience. I will definitely be rethinking my own password management and security settings for email & social media.
Security is so important these days. Sad that we have to be so careful!