The same day Elon Musk fires half of Twitter. It’s an official verified account for the spokesperson of the Governor of 5th largest state in the nation. Here’s hoping this was a rare occurrence. https://t.co/ZSwKQ7UvaW
I had an instagram account for about a month and it was hacked and posts were created, nothing bad though. I deleted the account and don’t have social media anymore.
1) I do very basic security (two-factor authentication), and
2) I am insignificant (bogus tweets from my account wouldn’t have any effect on the twitter verse — to paraphrase the Bard, “Who steals my account steals trash; ’tis something, nothing”), and
3) I don’t use my “real name” on social media (which makes my online social media accounts less appealing to criminals because they are unattached to real world things like bank accounts and the like).
I really feel for journalists and pols who must operate on the web fully exposed by their government names and identities.
Someone got into my email account a few months ago. Shame on me, I had left the password as the reset password my provider created when I was dealing with some service issues. The person/hacker created several additional mailboxes on my account (which seemed weird?), and tried to get into the credit card I have on record for auto-pay.
I received automated notices of the new mailboxes, which I was able to quickly delete (sometimes checking your phone in the middle of the night is a good thing…). And I use different passwords on my various accounts (email, bank, credit cards, etc), none of which are variations of each other. Makes it complicated to remember stuff, but the practice saved me in this case because they couldn’t access my credit card. If my email password and my credit card account password had been the same, this person could have done a lot of damage.
This kind of issue is going to start popping up more and more as Twitter degrades as a platform. This is just the first example. I hope we can find an alternative to Twitter where the communities that have been created can continue.
For me? Never been hacked. I do have to say…with all due to respect to Abudayyeh and Maxwell…her “official verified” account with less than 6,000 followers is rather minor in the Twittersphere despite her important state role. I wouldn’t so easily tie Musk’s recent changes with this common, random event.
-Impersonated on the “FacerBooking” once, but that doesn’t count.-
To a lot of people I know it does count. They say something like “I’ve been hacked. Ignore any friend requests from me,’ when in reality what happened is someone set up a separate account with their name, pulled down their picture, and is seeking to friend their friends so they can get access to their personal info for nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, the original person’s account was never compromised.
Not hacked, but folks getting emails that look like they are coming from me happens a lot. Luckily, most folks know I have no interest in them buying iTunes cards for me.
I dealt with a family member getting an imposter account set up. It took the family member, their son, and me to contact Facebook about the situation only for them to come back to us with a statement that stated, almost verbatim, that they didn’t see anything wrong with the account. No way to appeal the decision at the time either.
Back in the dinosaur days, when I was a wee blogger, I woke up one Saturday morning to go fire up the site and found my front page replaced with the Mask of Anonymous. It took much of the morning not only to get it gone but to check for booby traps — and to develop an appreciation for how much worse it could have been.
- JS Mill - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 1:59 pm:
Yep. Some bank info and once on Instagram.
I had an instagram account for about a month and it was hacked and posts were created, nothing bad though. I deleted the account and don’t have social media anymore.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:01 pm:
Impersonated on the “FacerBooking” once, but that doesn’t count.
Luckily never been locked out of any intertube things.
- MisterJayEm - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:12 pm:
“Have you ever been hacked?”
No.
I suspect that it is because:
1) I do very basic security (two-factor authentication), and
2) I am insignificant (bogus tweets from my account wouldn’t have any effect on the twitter verse — to paraphrase the Bard, “Who steals my account steals trash; ’tis something, nothing”), and
3) I don’t use my “real name” on social media (which makes my online social media accounts less appealing to criminals because they are unattached to real world things like bank accounts and the like).
I really feel for journalists and pols who must operate on the web fully exposed by their government names and identities.
– MrJM
- Leslie K - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:29 pm:
Someone got into my email account a few months ago. Shame on me, I had left the password as the reset password my provider created when I was dealing with some service issues. The person/hacker created several additional mailboxes on my account (which seemed weird?), and tried to get into the credit card I have on record for auto-pay.
I received automated notices of the new mailboxes, which I was able to quickly delete (sometimes checking your phone in the middle of the night is a good thing…). And I use different passwords on my various accounts (email, bank, credit cards, etc), none of which are variations of each other. Makes it complicated to remember stuff, but the practice saved me in this case because they couldn’t access my credit card. If my email password and my credit card account password had been the same, this person could have done a lot of damage.
- Skeptic - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:32 pm:
This kind of issue is going to start popping up more and more as Twitter degrades as a platform. This is just the first example. I hope we can find an alternative to Twitter where the communities that have been created can continue.
- Lakefront - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:42 pm:
For me? Never been hacked. I do have to say…with all due to respect to Abudayyeh and Maxwell…her “official verified” account with less than 6,000 followers is rather minor in the Twittersphere despite her important state role. I wouldn’t so easily tie Musk’s recent changes with this common, random event.
- Ron Burgundy - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:44 pm:
-Impersonated on the “FacerBooking” once, but that doesn’t count.-
To a lot of people I know it does count. They say something like “I’ve been hacked. Ignore any friend requests from me,’ when in reality what happened is someone set up a separate account with their name, pulled down their picture, and is seeking to friend their friends so they can get access to their personal info for nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, the original person’s account was never compromised.
- Montrose - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:45 pm:
Not hacked, but folks getting emails that look like they are coming from me happens a lot. Luckily, most folks know I have no interest in them buying iTunes cards for me.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 2:47 pm:
- Ron Burgundy -
It was a thing, I got a lot of help, the page was taken down.
Why one does these things…
- Blitz - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 3:45 pm:
I dealt with a family member getting an imposter account set up. It took the family member, their son, and me to contact Facebook about the situation only for them to come back to us with a statement that stated, almost verbatim, that they didn’t see anything wrong with the account. No way to appeal the decision at the time either.
- Lurker - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 4:04 pm:
I feel like I was hacked when a far left coworker kept calling me Lucky Pierre. Does that count?
- yinn - Friday, Nov 4, 22 @ 4:09 pm:
Back in the dinosaur days, when I was a wee blogger, I woke up one Saturday morning to go fire up the site and found my front page replaced with the Mask of Anonymous. It took much of the morning not only to get it gone but to check for booby traps — and to develop an appreciation for how much worse it could have been.