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Hijacked!
I just had a hell of a scare. This morning I got an email from Yahoo notifying me that my password had been successfully changed.
The only problem was that I hadn't changed it.
Obviously someone had cracked into my account and stolen it. This was doubtless made easier for them because I'd used a very simple password. But I never thought anyone would bother to try to steal my account - why would they?
Unfortunately I was wrong. And I have to hope that the thief didn't read my Yahoo mail because - and I know this was really stupid - I'd emailed my online banking ID and password to myself at Yahoo, in the clear, with each message clearly labelled and the bank's URL included in the message. No thief could possibly ask for more!
I quickly had Yahoo send me the new password (they use one of those personal question recovery things) and used it to change the password to something far less easy to guess. I did likewise for the bank password, and deleted those messages from my Yahoo account. As far as I can tell the bank account hasn't been touched. So I'm hoping that no harm was done.
But it was certainly a terrifying experience.
The only problem was that I hadn't changed it.
Obviously someone had cracked into my account and stolen it. This was doubtless made easier for them because I'd used a very simple password. But I never thought anyone would bother to try to steal my account - why would they?
Unfortunately I was wrong. And I have to hope that the thief didn't read my Yahoo mail because - and I know this was really stupid - I'd emailed my online banking ID and password to myself at Yahoo, in the clear, with each message clearly labelled and the bank's URL included in the message. No thief could possibly ask for more!
I quickly had Yahoo send me the new password (they use one of those personal question recovery things) and used it to change the password to something far less easy to guess. I did likewise for the bank password, and deleted those messages from my Yahoo account. As far as I can tell the bank account hasn't been touched. So I'm hoping that no harm was done.
But it was certainly a terrifying experience.
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My one brush with disaster was that bit where I saw in my online bank
record three little tiny charges from eBay and a company that helps one
sell stuff on eBay. I've never registered on eBay. The bank took care of
all that promptly. Still don't know what really happened there.
"Identity theft" is a big deal now.
You hear about that new hotel in Boston where your room key is your
retinal pattern? There's a scanner and that's how you get in. Of course
that means you can't get in if there is a power outage, right?
The logic is, I suppose, that you can't fake retinal patterns.