Let's Be Careful Out There

[dr_phil_physics]

GMail Hacking

There's some sort of bastard viro-trojan-stupid e-mail going around that manages to send a message from your Gmail account to your entire contact list -- and then deletes the contact list.

(1) If you use Gmail, go and export your Contact list so you have a backup.

Click on Contacts on the left side of the Gmail screen, select All Contacts, then there's an Export tab at the top right of the contacts.

(2) I was able to save someone, because the spam e-mail (which talks about this great electronics site in order to get you to click on the link) had their entire contact list in the Send list. I just copied it, pasted it into a Wordpad file, then e-mailed it back.

(3) Sons of bitches bastards assholes! I HATE freaks who think they have a right to fuck with anyone else's machine and data and livelihood.

Thank you for your time and you're welcome.

Dr. Phil

UPDATE: It's 14:23 EDT and I'm giving my Physics class Exam 2 -- can't connect to Gmail or Google right now.
UPDATE: Problem eventually resolved itself. Coincidence? Or Conspiracy? You be the judge! (grin)

Comments

[wendyb-09.livejournal.com]

Actually folks, he saved his big sister. Tip o' the hat to the brother unit for his quick thinking.

Funny you should mention a Google freeze, spotted several right after I had the spammage attack, then about the time I was gettng hit with repeats of the same message from other people. Which would have been about the time you were giving your exams.

Coincidence??? I think NOT!!!

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

This thing has been bouncing around Gmail and Yahoo!mail, etc. for about a year in different forms, as near as I can tell. But one thing is telling: you can choose how secure your Gmail is, by either connecting to Gmail by using https:// instead of http:// OR by going into Settings | General | Browser connection: Always use https . Then while you are using Gmail, you get the little padlock icon in your browser and your Gmail webpages all start with https .

Possibly this prevents hijacking. Dunno, but it can't hurt.

Dr. Phil

[wendyb-09.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, and therein lies the rub, as I just discovered.

I did that last night. Tonight when I got home, gmail decided my password was not secure enough and locked me out of my account for most of the evening. Changed it again, almost back to my original one, and finally got back in.

their 20 question no-help questions wanted to know when I opened the account, and I have no idea. It was several years ago for a specific purpose and then lay dormant until last year when I canceled the mindspring account.