I Got Hacked! and How I Recovered!

So I have been really busy getting the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Day together in London Ontario on May 19. That event is looking wonderful and its a free event for residents in my city to learn about nutrition and eating real food!

So Sunday morning I was meeting one of my terrific volunteers and I checked my email before leaving. My email inbox was completely empty.  I was also given a screen  that indicated my account had been accessed from Nigeria.  I went on Facebook and my instant messages started flashing. I didn’t have time to respond so i left and headed out to my meeting.  While I was waiting for her at the coffee shop I went on Facebook from my phone. I had 4 unread emails on facebook.

I opened the first one and they told me that they had received an email from me indicating I was in the Phillipines and that I had been robbed at gunpoint the night before. Apparently I was requesting 2000 to get home after my passport cash and credit cards were stolen.

I opened the other notes and they all said the same thing.  I received a call on my cell from another friend worrying that I might have actually been robbed.

I realized that I had been hacked and that all my facebook contacts and email contacts had received this message.

I immediately changed my password on facebook and on my email account. Then  I went to Twitter and changed password there too.

Later that afternoon when I got home I found that the passwords I had changed things too had been changed again to something I did not set them too.

I went through the process of setting new passwords again and hoped that would be the end of it.

I determined that the reason this happened was likely due to a an email that was in my mail on Saturday night from Rogers telling me that I needed to upgrade to the most recent version of their mail . I knew that they had recently upgraded their email tool so it didn’t strike me as odd to click in that and then go to what appeared to be my rogers sign on screen to enter my user name and password.

  Well done scammers you got me! 

The next morning I went to access my new gmail account and found that my password was not valid.

I thought I was losing my mind. I no longer had access to my primary twitter account on my laptop and my new email account was acting up too?

Twitter continues to be a problem as it has my old email address in its records for me and keeps sending requests to change the password into an account I can no longer access! I no longer have any emails that you may have sent me and I don’t have anything I sent you! I no longer have your email address either!

I have with the help of my awesome technical resource at the office finally cleared this laptop of this trojan, worm or whatever it was!

I am going to provide the steps that I took to resolve this problem and everyone who received this email or who has dealt with this kind of email hack may want to try these steps before they take it to a company to reformat your computer.

1. I was using AVG Free anti virus. AVG scan did not pick up any virus or problems in my computer. I was speaking to a technician last week about anti virus software and he said AVG is the one to avoid. That every day there are users coming in with laptops that were infected by viruses that AVG did not find. He suggested AVAST if I was going to use a free anti virus program.

2 I deleted AVG free anti virus and then downloaded AVAST.  AVAST scan found a handful of errors and I had hoped I had cleared the problem. The next morning I went to  check my gmail account and once again my password was changed and I could not access it.

I spoke to my techie guru at the office and he suggested the following steps.

1. Download Combofix which is freeware and run that first.

I ran Combofix and it cleaned up a ton of errors in my laptop. It took about 10 minutes but clearly did a great job and I highly recommend it now.

2. Then download Malaware Bytes – Anti Malaware.

This took almost an hour to scan my laptop and it only found 1 additional problem that Combofix had not cleaned up.

3. After running the scans change all passwords one more time to complex passwords that combine numbers, letters and characters.

This morning I am happy to report that all my passwords are working correctly. My twitter account still needs the twitter gods to change the email address associated with that account and then I will have Twitter working correctly for me too.

This caused a lot of headaches for me and for my friends thank you for notifying me. I admit i was getting tired of repeating that I was not in the phillipines and that I was already aware I had been hacked.

But it did not stop me from progressing with the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Day planning. I am on track and this event will be awesome!

Please if you are concerned that you may have a virus in your computer take the advice I used and try it before spending money on reformatting your machines!

Hugs

Michelle

Losing your financial status and finding happiness again without the money!

I listened to the pain and sorrow of the 450 workers that lost their jobs in London yesterday. Caterpillar decided to close a plant that had been providing families with a secure lifestyle in London for 0ver 60 years. They were underhanded and rude and did not think twice about destroying these families in such a difficult time in the job market.

I have been in similar shoes and I want to share some of that story in hopes it helps one of these workers cope.

In the year 2001 I earned 100,000 and my ex was earning about 65 k . We had lived the perfect life with trips to disney, cruises, kids in all kinds of activies. 2 cars, beautiful home, white picket fence so to speak.

In the year 2002 I lost that job in a large layoff that the technology company I had worked for over the past 13 years decided it wanted to go public.

In 2003 my marriage fell apart for numerous reasons but financial pressure was not one of them. A severance package kept us at that lifestyle level for that year.

In 2004 I chose to become an entrepreneur which was destined to fail based on the end of my marriage and needing to focus on keeping the kids stable.

In 2005 I decided to go back into technology and i took a position in sales knowing I could make up the 30k base pay with commissions.

This was not a reality as I was tasked with selling into a small business market and it was expensive product.

I quit that job after 9 months and was on unemployment for the first time. These were my darkest days, I couldn’t pay my bills, I was putting groceries on credit cards , i was using credit for everything hoping and believing that things would improve and i could pay those bills off in time. This was a huge mistake and i strongly pray not a trap you will let yourself fall into. Within 6 months i was severely depressed. Creditors were calling and I was avoiding the phone. I reached a very dark place and considered ending my life to stop the madness.

That was the day things changed. I picked up the phone and called my stepdad and told him how deeply I was in trouble. I called a counsellor and started sharing my pain. I also called a doctor and got put on anti depressants.

In 2006 I got a job at IBM with a starting salary of 20.00 per hour. it was contract position for 2 years with no benefits or vacation time. I looked at that as an opportunity to get into IBM permanently and life improved for those 2 years.

In 2008 the first recession hit and IBM did not renew my contract or offer full time. I had been in a sales role and the sales team had all struggled so it was not surprising that they got rid of contractors first.

In 2008 I was on unemployment for a 1o month period. I was lucky to have a stepfather who would chip in every month to make things liveable. At least we could keep the 2 bedroom basement apartment my daughter and i were living in.

But there was no money for extras at all. So we learned to find joy and happiness in other things.

We started going to the library to rent movies.

We started playing a lot of board games.

We started using discount coupons and air miles to go to occasional movie theatre.

We started going for long walks and appreciating the nature around us.

When there is no money you find other ways to amuse yourself.  Initially this is done to prevent boredom and keep kids amused. Then something changes and you realize you are actually having fun. I didn’t have to take the kids to the arcade, rent hotel rooms downtown, or go to fancy restaurants to be happy. I had found happiness in the simple things.

Personally for myself I found that going out dancing with friends and drinking water or pop was a cheap way to have laughs and forget about the bills! Going to Karoake made for a hilarious night of laughter and fun that can also be enjoyed for just the price of a pop.

I needed those escapes and they did keep me balanced when everything else was hard to face.

Now its 2012 and I am still earning less than half of what I made in 2002. But my life is one I am happy in. Can I afford vacations, trips to the theatre, concerts, spa treatments, new clothes, fancy hair cuts…nope! But I can keep a roof over my daughter and I and I can keep a puppy fed too. They bring me laughter, the volunteer work I do to raise awareness for Fatty Liver disease keeps me feeling good about myself and life is improving day by day.

Would I like to be earning 100k again. Of course I would. That would mean many freedoms but in the meantime I can be satisfied with the small joys.

To my new friends who just lost their jobs at EMD or FORD or anywhere else. I hope you can find some comfort knowing I survived and that today my son who is now 18 will say that he is most proud of my ability to get back up after the world shoots me down. I never give up. So for your children’s sake don’t give up and avoid some of my mistakes.

Hugs and thinking of you today!

Michelle