What a Hack Job

I got hacked!
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As in, my whole world came crashing down…..hard! Last Friday, I noticed an email from Twitter saying that my password had been changed and that I needed to contact them if I hadn’t done the changing. Which is all a big fat lie because I still can’t get back into the Twitter world. That whole CONTACT US thing? LIES!! Mean evil vicious L I E S !!! And, no…I’m totally not bitter.

I told my hubby about it that night but didn’t really think about it too much because you know, it was Friday night. I wanted to jump head on into my relaxing weekend. However, I woke up the next morning to the face of Hitler as my new profile pic on my Facebook and then I knew….I was totally hacked.

It’s probably a good thing (looking back) that I had no clue just how invasive this hack job had gone. I most likely wouldn’t have slept so peacefully and I know for sure that my poor hubby’s life would’ve been pure misery. That old, What Mama don’t know…won’t hurt her thing! True reality for this gal!

I jumped up out of bed and tried to access anything and everything in my world that required a password. Nada! Nothing worked. Panic slapped me all around and my head was spinning with worry. I thought of all the ways a hacker destroys lives and robs innocent people. I imagined the worst. Hey, that’s just who I am, okay? It was bad, but whoever this monster was had not made it into my checking account. Did I mention, Friday was PAYDAY?

Whew!

There began the great clean-up Wanda’s computer and all her favorite hang-outs Spring 2015. The weekend was a sheer pleasure! Nothing fun happened involving using a computer or cell phone. It was all business! Oh and if you thought having a profile pic of Hitler posted all over Facebook was bad….

Just try to process ME having to CHANGE EVERY SINGLE PASSWORD to EVERY LITTLE THING I do or use. I cried. I whaled. I resisted. I begged for mercy. I even puffed myself up and lied to (me) that I COULD REMEMBER…such crap! I’ll never ever ever remember all the new passwords created for all the places I go online. I am so hosed!

So, by Sunday I was at the point of being a rebellious teenager. When my hubby (who has a mind like a stinking steel trap) would yell down another new password for blah blah blah, I would holler back….”I’M NEVER GOING TO REMEMBER IT, KILL ME NOW!”.

Yea, I’m real mature!

Finally, I just gave up and said, “Write them all down!”.

I’ll be honest, I’m not as strong in the remembering department as I once was. I’m blaming it on all the childbirth experiences. I’ve taken a beating on the memory muscle and I NEED HELP! My kids tell me things and I still ask them questions later about it. I think they believe I’m a 100 years old or at least my mind is. So, getting hacked was a true lesson in brain power reboot!

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After working on my online lifestyle habits all weekend, the best husband in the world presented me with a print-out of all my new passwords.

Only….he forgot to change my laptop password and I don’t know how things work in your life, but if you can’t access your laptop. You have no online life. Am I right?

FYI: Do not ignore weird emails telling you your accounts have changed any passwords. Not that you can really do anything about it at that point. But, representing yourself as Hitler on Facebook might be avoidable if you quick like a bunny go in and change your account passwords.

I’m going to confess here that as long as I’ve been a traveler in the online world, I’ve only had to use ONE PASSWORD or a similar variation of it the whole time. So, I’m telling you….CHANGE PASSWORDS here and there! It might save you some of the frustration that I’ve experienced this last weekend.

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