WARNING: Google’s GMail Security Failure
G-mail’s Security Failure affects the business of Graphic Designer
This week graphic designer David Airey’s Google E-mail account was hacked, which allowed for the hacker to hijack his primary domain name by performing an illegal transfer.
If this doesn’t mean anything to you, imagine this scenario: you go online at the computer in your home office to check your e-mail. Then you go to the store for some milk. When you return, your key doesn’t work and a real estate agent walks up your driveway offering to sell your own house back to you. You didn’t even know that you had put your house on the market. Then, when you attempt to take this real estate agent to court, you are told that it will cost you more than what they are demanding from you for your own stolen house.
What do you do?
Mr. Airey has refused to give in to the criminal who stole his domain. Thankfully he has a secondary domain, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t losing business, money, and time.
Read his article here.
I felt a particular twinge of sympathy for Mr. Airey as I am currently living in Egypt and had trouble getting internet connection for the first three months that I was here. This could have just as easily happened to me. I never go to the internet cafés here because I have had friends here who have had their e-mail passwords hacked by the kids who work in hand hang out there. They seem to think that it is fun to fiddle with spyware and keylogger software to get passwords and phone numbers from people. This is fertile ground for the type of hack with which Airey was attacked.
Though unfortunate for Mr. Airey, this should be instructive to the rest of us.
- When you check your G-mail, check your filters for hacks
- If you own domain names, put extra security on them
- Do not use public computers, and if you do, make sure that you have logged out of your e-mail and other accounts, and check them for anomalies
- Be sure to make your passwords complicated, using numbers as well as upper and lower-case letters
- Change your passwords frequently
- Do not open links in your e-mail if you are not sure where or who they came from
- Do not visit shady websites
The most important thing that you can do is be vigilant and not visit shady-looking websites. However, Airey did all of these things and was still hacked and had his time and money stolen.
If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing which can help Mr. Airey, please visit his site and e-mail him with any helpful suggestions. Spread this link around to your friends and make this sort of incident more widely known. Additionally, for G-mail users, e-mail your concern about this problem to Google.
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Thank you very much for your support. It’s greatly appreciated.
There should be some good news on the horizon however, and I’ll be publishing an update very soon.