My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

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simonshack
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My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by simonshack »

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WARNING / DISCLAIMER TO ALL MY E-MAIL CONTACTS


Dear all,

It would appear that my e-mail account has been 'hacked' in some way - so if you should receive any suspect / weird e-mail apparently sent from my simonshack(at)libero.it account, please know that ... it is NOT ME!

In the last few weeks I've become aware that something has gone awry with my libero e-mail account - due to a number of anomalies and odd / weird occurences. The first one was actuallly noticed by fellow Cluesforum admin nonhocapito - who wrote me this message on Sept 26, 2016:
nonhocapito wrote:Simon, come stai? Ti scrivo qui perché ho appena notato nella mia cartella spam un messaggio dal tuo indirizzo di libero che è chiaramente un messaggio junk o di "malware", e che rimanda ad un indirizzo irraggiungibile. Così a naso mi sa che la tua casella di libero è stata compromessa, ti consiglio di fare un virus check sul tuo laptop e sicuramente di cambiare la password di libero...

Simon, how are you? I'm writing you because I have just found in my spam folder a message from your libero account which evidently is a junk or "malware" message - which sends you back to an unreachable address. My gut feeling is that your libero mailbox has been compromised , I would advice you to do a virus check on your laptop and surely to change your libero account's password."
On October 8, 2016 - our forum member "sharpstuff" complained in THIS forum post that...
sharpstuff wrote:Why cannot I reply to Simon Shack via e-mail?

I sent an e-mail to his address (as a private individual and to which he has responded) and it was returned to me.as my ISP was apparently blacklisted, or something.

What is going on here?
Then, today, I received two e-mails with similar complaints / warnings. Since these last two are from non-forum members, I will not name these two individuals - but only report / transcribe the 'gist' of those other two complaint /warning messages :

Message1:
(...) Stop sending me phishing emails from fucking Canada you useless loser cunt.

Message 2
Hi Simon,

My name is (...), I emailed you in early August about joining the forum. To cut a long story short, every email I sent you was deleted from my sent items, and someone pretending to be you sent replies on your behalf and it became very weird.

Over the next 2 months, it became apparent that my iphone, iPad and 2 PC's and 2 laptops were all hacked. All my passwords were hacked for about 20 websites I use. It has cost me lot of time, and £1000's in repairs.

The hacking later became very sinister, this was clearly a sick individual.
My initial thoughts were that it might be government orientated, but I thought they'd certainly they must have better things to do.

If during this time, you received my emails from me, please note that as my account was hacked, these may not have been from me.

(...)

I am just a photographer, based in Lancashire England, who has a keen interest in media hoaxes.
I have since been bolstering up my security, and if you are accepting forum applications again, I assure you that, for now, I am not being hacked.

Any advice on best VPN's, email providers, IT security much appreciated also.

Kind regards,
(...)
I of course feel compelled to announce this unfortunate 'terror attack' at my personal e-mail account to all of our readers - even though it's really not such a big deal. Hopefully, having now changed my password and sent a formal complaint to the libero staff, this problem will go away. -_-
brianv
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by brianv »

Simon, if you have an old laptop, well not too old, grab one of the Live CD Linux Distros. Do all your online stuff from there. I know Linux can be a pain in the rear sometimes, but worth it if security is a concern!

As for useless loser cunts , that would be the CIA (if they actually exist???)

Total Arrests for the 9/11 hoax = 0
Total Convictions for the 9/11 hoax = 0
hoi.polloi
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

This is troubling, Simon.

I have been lucky in the sense that I haven't had much of that happen to me, except by the usual spam/bot things out there in/on the web. And never have I received an e-mail blaming me or even alluding to the possibility of shenanigans like this.

I guess brianv could be right. I've also found it useful to switch systems — even Winblows and OSX (unix based). It also helps to have some tech savvy persons on hand to look at things you haven't thought of.

I think there must be some old thread on here about the futility of web privacy/security and how it's actually not entirely futile, and worth trying.
Seneca
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by Seneca »

A friend recommended the e-mail provider "posteo" based in Germany: https://posteo.de/en for 1€
Looks pretty secure but I am not a specialist. The only negative point I see is that they buy their energy from Greenpeace.
pov603
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by pov603 »

Oddly enough when viewing this site this morning, which I can usually do automatically, I was asked to log in at which point my iPhone 6 using safari 'told' me that my password was different and would I like to update? Strangely, this 'different' password still allowed me access to the site. Could this be a related issue?

Edit for grammar.
hoi.polloi
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

pov603 » October 18th, 2016, 6:12 am wrote:Oddly enough when viewing this site this morning, which I can usually do automatically, I was asked to log in at which point my iPhone 6 using safari 'told' me that my password was different and would I like to update? Strangely, this 'different' password still allowed me access to the site. Could this be a related issue?
I don't think those are related. Sounds like a Mac OS update issue. When iOS or OSX or something like it updates, there tend to be some disconnects between previous stored data sets. Maybe the Safari keychain or stored passwords needed a "friendly nudge". Has it affected any other stored passwords, or just the one for CluesForum? You could try other forums, if you frequent them, and see if it has affected your log in process.

It is interesting to watch the various ways other software "treats" CluesForum over the years, though. At times, we've had sites calling links to CluesForum "dangerous" or "malware" or "not secure". It may have been to freak people out, or it may have been some miscommunication about certificates or something.

It's sometimes hard to tell if CluesForum fails to fit in with some ICANN or other dictated policy, or if some policy is written specifically to make CluesForum fail to fit in. It's possible that hackers trying to make it inconvenient to visit our sites will exploit the ambiguity there.
simonshack
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Re: My (simonshack) e-mail account "hacked"

Unread post by simonshack »

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Thanks for everyone's kind help and advice.

The problem seems to have gone away now - my libero.it mailbox is back to normal. :)
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