Hackers Suck – Beware!
A few days ago, I received a DM (Direct Message) from a prospect on Twitter. I had had a couple of communications back and forth with this person about Social Media. Their DM said that I was in a video that they had posted. Well, curiosity kicked in and I wondered what they possibly could have said about me in this video so I clicked on it only to be taken to another site. I gave this person the benefit of the doubt and didn’t want to embarrass them by telling them they had given a bad link, so I just let it go. BIG MISTAKE! This person’s Twitter account had obviously been hacked and in turn these scoundrels sent out DMs to her followers with their own propaganda, which in turn, I allowed to affect me.
By a stroke of luck, I had been doing some other things online at that time creating links for myself with some Twitter applications and when I was done, I went about doing some cleanup. In the cleanup process I noticed a link that I didn’t think I had given permission to, so I ‘unapproved’ it which diminished this hacker’s effectiveness but obviously not in enough time for everyone. Not long after that, I started receiving my own DMs. It became apparent that I was now proliferating messages to my following, (by DM), to say that I was making many thousands of dollars a day online.
Thankfully, most of the people who sent me the DM said that they realized it must be spam and just alerted me to the fact that I too had been hacked, others said they clicked on the link and it didn’t go anywhere and another wanted to know why, if I was making that kind of money, would I be doing VA work?
Needless to say, this kind of hacking makes me furious. I have spent a lot of time developing serious relationships with my followers. Most know that I wouldn’t send out that kind of message and certainly not in a DM- it’s definitely not my style but for others who are just getting to know me better, I wonder how this might have affected a blossoming relationship. How many out there got the message and didn’t tell me? It’s not cool when this happens to a Social Media Specialist VA, now is it?! But I guess it shows that we can all be vulnerable to this kind of crap! So I’m human, go figure!
If you suspect that your account has been hacked, here’s what you should do.
1. Go to your Twitter account and be safe – change your password.
2. Go to ‘Settings’ on your Twitter account and on the top bar, click on the tab that says ‘Connections’. On this page, check the permissions to applications/sites that you have given access to your Twitter account. If there is something there that you don’t recognize, ‘un-authorize’ it. This will disable access.
3. If someone tells you that you have been sending out SPAM, check it out. Don’t ignore it.
4. Tell someone if you suspect they have been hacked and if you have done as I did and clicked on the link, there’s a chance your own account has been affected so alert your own following.
I have since told that person that they had been hacked and they thanked me for letting them know. This is a pretty novice user in the Social Media realm. What a welcome! I have also sent out a global message to my following to apologize for the disruption and if in fact they did click on the link, to check their own Twitter accounts. I hate hackers! How about you?
Feel free to let me know what you think about this. How do we as a Social Media community deal with this? Here on my site, I offer comment luv!…By leaving a comment, you will be able to link back to your own site…great for SEO 
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….
