RANT: Got hacked.

Not me, thankfully. But, I did feel the effects of someone else getting hacked. Does the name Fred Cabasa ring a bell for anyone? I have no recollection about how I know this person. I even have this person in my contacts, but it was before I started noting down how I met people. Thus, this person had his information (i.e. email account(s), phone, computer, etc.) compromised in some way and I received some of the consequences.

How do I know that this person was compromised? I've got a fairly good idea of how spammers work and an email that seems like it's coming from someone I know is no real indicator. In this case, however, I received additional information leading me to believe that this person should really be careful about his personal information from here on out. Here's the message:



First, the email message only contained a link and no other text in the body of the message. The sender was Fred Cabasa using an email address I had on file for him, separately. The message also looked like it was sent to a small number of people at the beginning of the alphabet. Finally, the real tell-tale-sign about this message was that it included another email address of mine that I no longer use.

There's one other way that indicated Fred got hacked. I received a junk text message on my cell phone. This was no ordinary text message. This text message contained the same link as in the email I described earlier.

There are a million ways people could have obtained this information: from hacking his computer, to something as simple as finding his old cell phone or other device that contains this information Fred might have disposed of without properly wiping the data.

Moral of the story? Don't give your personal contact information out to anyone, ever. Wait, check that comment. Some times my paranoia gets the best of me. Seriously though, I think the moral of the story here is to make sure you protect your data and your devices. It's too easy to obtain information these days. If we all do our part (even if we don't care about our own information), we'll also protect those people who could be affected by information theft.

Hope this helps you. Happy Computing.