Saturday, September 11, 2010

Short Take - Gulf Today Dt 11.09.2010 - Mail shock

Short Take - Gulf Today Dt 11.09.2010 - Mail shock

A few weeks ago, I was talking on the mobile with a friend based in Dubai. After 10 minutes, I received an email from him saying that he was stuck in Switzerland and lost his wallet, all credit cards and money.

The email continued requesting my help to rescue him out by sending a specified amount of money in US dollars which the author said will be given to me upon replying to the email. I knew then and there itself that his email account has been hacked.

I called him and he was shocked to hear this news. Within minutes he was receiving several calls from his friends who did not talk to him for some time and they all suspected the same or even thought whether it was real as he travels extensively. The damage had been done by then, and he was unable to recover the email address or thousands of contacts and records in it. Just the other day, the same thing happened to another friend based in Abu Dhabi. His friends too got a similar email and he too lost all details.

There is a new email hacking or threat happening now, which you may or may not be aware of. Please do not therefore use your email account from unknown computers or locations. Even if you have to use it, clear the cache, and history on the computer immediately.

Also, please do use a different password whenever you register yourself at new sites or promotional websites and keep it entirely different from your email password. Thirdly, please keep changing the password periodically. Hope, you do not get to become a victim the next time.

Ramesh Menon

To read it in original, please visit, GULF TODAY online.

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