My Facebook and Gmail accounts were hacked

festeringZit · Dec 15, 2009

This morning both my Facebook and Gmail accounts were hacked into,
and some guy was using them to chat with my friends and try
to scam money from them claiming I was robbed in London.

Apparently this is happening to a lot of people:

http://wcbstv.com/technology/facebook.london.phishing.2.1148617.html

What I believe happened is that I used the same passwords on
another site that had less security, and they got my password
from that site, and used it on Facebook and Gmail.

The moral of the story is to never use the same password twice,
and change them often. I knew better, but had gotten lazy.

The interesting thing was, when I sat down to my computer
this morning, I could see the guy chatting in gmail posing as me,
chatting with my brother. As soon as I started also chatting,
he disappeared.

SportSavant · Dec 15, 2009

yup, many people make the mistake of using the same password EVERYWHERE, it is a good idea to change them up.

ALSO

Check out roboform dot com for password managment, it is simply AWESOME.

djmatt · Dec 15, 2009

good thing we aint friends
happy holidays and a mass message to friends to notify them you're not being held hostage overseas, or broke not making it home for christmas is in order

RobFunk · Dec 15, 2009

Fest, thought you were a computer guru. This comes as a surprise.

festeringZit · Dec 15, 2009

RobFunk said:
Fest, thought you were a computer guru. This comes as a surprise.

I am a software engineer... but yes, I did get caught with my
pants down.

F.A.D.E.D. · Dec 15, 2009

festeringZit said:
I am a software engineer... but yes, I did get caught with my
pants down.

Can you explain how so we don't make the same mistake?d1g1t

SportSavant · Dec 15, 2009

F.A.D.E.D. said:
Can you explain how so we don't make the same mistake?d1g1t

as mentioned above, some people will use the same password everywhere to make things easier.

So once they get it hacked, they have access to all of your accounts.

steaktartar · Dec 15, 2009

i dont have either but sorry zit......anyone will try anything

festeringZit · Dec 15, 2009

SportSavant said:
as mentioned above, some people will use the same password everywhere to make things easier.

So once they get it hacked, they have access to all of your accounts.

I didn't use the same password everywhere, I probably have 20 different
passwords, but I did use some of them more than once, which is
how I think I was compromised.

5teamparlay · Dec 15, 2009

FISHHEAD needs to get on facebook. :howdy:

SportSavant · Dec 15, 2009

Ive got to change a few passwords around myself.

I was recently emailed a Keychain Tag by Moneybookers, it displays a CODE which always changes.

I have to have the keychain with me to be able to log into my Moneybookers account now.

This is the same security that my wife uses to log into her work account (she works for the bank).