Hacked

[mail2us]

We have been hacked due to a phishing message we received. We received a message two days ago from a friend that had a Google Docs attachment. We opened that attachment thru our smartphone and that caused many of you a problem. Had we opened that Google Docs attachment thru our PC there's no doubt this would not have occurred. We have taken actions to hopefully lessen and ultimately stop this action. If you receive such a message from Judy or I do not open the attachment. Simply delete the entire message. Thanks for your understanding.

[BB_TX]

Be very careful of any e-mail that appears to be from a friend with an attachment. I get regular e-mails with friends and relatives names as the sender, even my young granddaughters, but when checking I find the associated e-mail address is not even close to theirs. So I send the e-mails to spam folder without opening anything.
When you get one of those, click on the details of the sender name to check the e-mail address. That will verify if it is the actual friend or a spammer.

[mail2us]

Good advice. Our issue was some ignorance on our part as it relates to our smartphone usage. We have not up to now had any anti-virus app. We opened a Google Docs attachment from a friend, as you related not to, and that began the phishing. We now have anti-virus app on our smartphones. Our PC caught it after we had already opened the attachment from our smartphones.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

I hope you changed ALL your passwords too. I got that email on my Mrs. CountryGuy email, I wrote YOU????? back asking what it was and YOU??? answered saying it was just a prayer list. Was that really you??

IF it was not, and even if it were, you would be wise to change every email account password, maybe more than once??

[oldelmer1]

quote:Originally posted by mail2us

Good advice. Our issue was some ignorance on our part as it relates to our smartphone usage. We have not up to now had any anti-virus app. We opened a Google Docs attachment from a friend, as you related not to, and that began the phishing. We now have anti-virus app on our smartphones. Our PC caught it after we had already opened the attachment from our smartphones.

Dennis,
What anti-virus app did you get?

[CATCRAW]

I have Norton Mobile on all my phones and Tablets.....

[mail2us]

quote:Originally posted by oldelmer1

Dennis,
What anti-virus app did you get?

We installed the free AVG mobile. There are others and AVG also has a premium, one time pay of $9.99 for another app.]

[mail2us]

quote:Originally posted by Mrs. CountryGuy

I hope you changed ALL your passwords too. I got that email on my Mrs. CountryGuy email, I wrote YOU????? back asking what it was and YOU??? answered saying it was just a prayer list. Was that really you??

IF it was not, and even if it were, you would be wise to change every email account password, maybe more than once??

Tks Carol. We have done all that you mentioned. We did not respond about any prayer list to you. Our primary fault was no AV on our smartphones. That too has been remedied. Tks

[mail2us]

quote:Originally posted by CATCRAW

I have Norton Mobile on all my phones and Tablets.....

Tks for the input. We now have an AV on our smartphones. We initially forgot about Judy's tablet and that too is now covered.

[brenkco]

Folks,
Just a FYI, most anti virus programs will not prevent a virus if you execute a program. Opening an attachment can execute the bad guys code. The anti virus or spam filter might catch it before it hits your email. If you open an infected attachment, you are executing a program designed to do bad things to your machine. Since you "executed" the program by opening the attachment, the anti virus software will not protect you.

Clicking on an embedded link can do the same thing. A simple work around is to copy the link and paste it into your browser.

Behavior is your number one defense.

Ken

[Jay Bird]

Dennis,
When you opened the attachment it must have captured your mailing list. I received that message from you and Judy yesterday. Jan Kelp had sent me the warning so I did not open the email. This is a learning experience for us as well. we did not have anti-virus protection on our phones either. However, that is about to change.

[DQDick]

Got it twice, but being a suspicious guy I deleted both of them.

[twindman]

Smartphone? What's a smartphone?

My T-mobile 10 cents a minute phone doesn't catch colds - errr, viruses.

[remhob]

I got the message and when I tried to reply asking you if you really sent it my anti-virus would not let me send it saying it was suspicious. I did notice that the email address was different than yours.