It was Tuesday morning when I chatted with my friend. She buzzed me and ask me “Musta na? “ (How are you?) I answered her with thrill as we haven’t seen nor chat for a long time. I told her “Mabuti naman and you ? (I am fine and you?) And she asked me where my kids are. I told her they are at school. She told me if I want to se her recent photos. I was really enthusiast to see her pictures. Me, thinking that she would really like to surprise me or I made this idea that she is finally pregnant so I was eager to see her. She sent me a file and open it through Flicker and asked me to view my webcam and so I did. She even told me that Yahoo will have a maintenance for 1 hour. And because she also would like to check if her webcam is working. After a few seconds she turned it off and so was I. I felt nothing so strange.
I continued cleaning the house, went out to pick up the kids and got disconnected. When I came back I couldn’t access to my yahoo email and messenger. Probably this is it, Yahoo is on maintenance or maybe we are having a signal problem which happened few times. I tried to reconnect over and over but I failed. Makis called and asked me how I was. She asked me if I am irritated with the internet. Thus I told her yes I am irritated because I cannot access to my yahoo account. She then told me to just try because it happens to her too. I told her that my friend told me that Yahoo will have a maintenance and I asked Makis if she could access through her email and messenger and she said yes. She did not encountered any connection problem and while I discuss with her about my friend that after I opened the file but failed to view them, I got disconnected. After brainstorming with Makis she ended up saying that I was probably HACKED! She was right ! Shocked and stressed out I tried to recover my yahoo address but unfortunately the hacker was more rapid than me. Makis told me that I was so strange during the chat because and was insisting for a webcam ! That, she needs to open the file I sent by signing in. After our conversation we then realized that we are a victim of phishing.
I immediately closed my blog, changed all the necessary passwords and addresses. Send an email to friends to warn them. All the while I thought I was chatting with my friend I was already chatting with the Hacker. And Makis was chatting with the hacker thinking that it was me! I had the confirmation when I called the sister of my friend in Paris and confirmed that my friend is having a problem with her email therefore she was hacked. The reason why the hacker was able to contact me by using my friend’s YM. It’s unbelievable!
I slept 1:30 in the morning after sending all warning messages to families and friends. Unfortunately, I had a cousin who was fooled by this hacker pretending to be me. My cousin is still young and never understood what happened to her until my sister saw my message and called me at 6:00AM France time (Manila time 12Noon) . The hacker made my cousin believed that it was me. She lost 10 globe cards worth 5 thousand Pesos. Until now the hacker is using my email and YM address and contacting all my contacts. Good thing, my friends knew me well and as for my family they were alerted right after my cousin was tricked. Many of my friends are emailing me and sending me a message thru my Friendster telling me that hacker is persistent in negotiating globe cards in buying them and will double the price when he gets the merchandise.
This is an example of my friends responses to my warning :
Hi haze,
Nakausap ko yung person na naghack sa Yahoo mo. Mukhang pinoy kase nagtatagalog. Sabi ko na eh! He was asking me if I could buy him 30 pcs globe cards then he'll pay me double the amount through . it was weird. It didn't sound like you cos the person was in a hurry. sabi ko, urgent ba?? Nako, nag gudbye nako kase I didn't feel right. I thought that somebody probably was using your ID. ang kapal nya, leche. Ano ako, tange?? Biro mo, nakipagusap pako. Sana wala pa sya nabiktima. yaiks!!
ate,
Last part na ito ng conversation namin lam ko hindi kaw kausap ko agad eh...
Vincent: antayin mo daw c bevs mag online siya usap daw kayo
Hazel Giraldi: ok cge
Vincent: wag ka daw magoaffline
Hazel Giraldi: huh?
Vincent: standby lng
Hazel Giraldi: ok
Hazel Giraldi: buzz nya na lng ako sabihin mo
Vincent: maganda daw yan offer mo
Vincent: 1000 USD for 25K worth of prepaid cards
Vincent: tubong lugaw
Vincent: kaya standby lng
Hazel Giraldi: oo pero every 2 months lng un
Vincent: 22K PHP ang tubo
Vincent: standby
Vincent: wag kg
Vincent: wag ka gagalaw
Hazel Giraldi: ok
Hazel Giraldi: ill wait
Vincent: yeah just stay put
Vincent: dont even think about moving
Vincent: or blinking
Vincent:
Vincent: gotcha
Hazel Giraldi:
Vincent: ano nga ulit names ng kids mo ate?
Vincent: hello?
Vincent: jan ka pa?
Vincent: wala na?
Vincent: yoohoooo?
Hide Recent Messages (F3)
Hazel Giraldi appears to be offline and will receive your messages after signing in. You can also send a message to Hazel Giraldi's mobile device.
Send an SMS Message (Ctrl+T)
Vincent: o ate y di ka na ans?
Vincent: busy?
TO BE CONTINUED.....
I continued cleaning the house, went out to pick up the kids and got disconnected. When I came back I couldn’t access to my yahoo email and messenger. Probably this is it, Yahoo is on maintenance or maybe we are having a signal problem which happened few times. I tried to reconnect over and over but I failed. Makis called and asked me how I was. She asked me if I am irritated with the internet. Thus I told her yes I am irritated because I cannot access to my yahoo account. She then told me to just try because it happens to her too. I told her that my friend told me that Yahoo will have a maintenance and I asked Makis if she could access through her email and messenger and she said yes. She did not encountered any connection problem and while I discuss with her about my friend that after I opened the file but failed to view them, I got disconnected. After brainstorming with Makis she ended up saying that I was probably HACKED! She was right ! Shocked and stressed out I tried to recover my yahoo address but unfortunately the hacker was more rapid than me. Makis told me that I was so strange during the chat because and was insisting for a webcam ! That, she needs to open the file I sent by signing in. After our conversation we then realized that we are a victim of phishing.
I immediately closed my blog, changed all the necessary passwords and addresses. Send an email to friends to warn them. All the while I thought I was chatting with my friend I was already chatting with the Hacker. And Makis was chatting with the hacker thinking that it was me! I had the confirmation when I called the sister of my friend in Paris and confirmed that my friend is having a problem with her email therefore she was hacked. The reason why the hacker was able to contact me by using my friend’s YM. It’s unbelievable!
I slept 1:30 in the morning after sending all warning messages to families and friends. Unfortunately, I had a cousin who was fooled by this hacker pretending to be me. My cousin is still young and never understood what happened to her until my sister saw my message and called me at 6:00AM France time (Manila time 12Noon) . The hacker made my cousin believed that it was me. She lost 10 globe cards worth 5 thousand Pesos. Until now the hacker is using my email and YM address and contacting all my contacts. Good thing, my friends knew me well and as for my family they were alerted right after my cousin was tricked. Many of my friends are emailing me and sending me a message thru my Friendster telling me that hacker is persistent in negotiating globe cards in buying them and will double the price when he gets the merchandise.
This is an example of my friends responses to my warning :
Hi haze,
Nakausap ko yung person na naghack sa Yahoo mo. Mukhang pinoy kase nagtatagalog. Sabi ko na eh! He was asking me if I could buy him 30 pcs globe cards then he'll pay me double the amount through . it was weird. It didn't sound like you cos the person was in a hurry. sabi ko, urgent ba?? Nako, nag gudbye nako kase I didn't feel right. I thought that somebody probably was using your ID. ang kapal nya, leche. Ano ako, tange?? Biro mo, nakipagusap pako. Sana wala pa sya nabiktima. yaiks!!
ate,
Last part na ito ng conversation namin lam ko hindi kaw kausap ko agad eh...
Vincent: antayin mo daw c bevs mag online siya usap daw kayo
Hazel Giraldi: ok cge
Vincent: wag ka daw magoaffline
Hazel Giraldi: huh?
Vincent: standby lng
Hazel Giraldi: ok
Hazel Giraldi: buzz nya na lng ako sabihin mo
Vincent: maganda daw yan offer mo
Vincent: 1000 USD for 25K worth of prepaid cards
Vincent: tubong lugaw
Vincent: kaya standby lng
Hazel Giraldi: oo pero every 2 months lng un
Vincent: 22K PHP ang tubo
Vincent: standby
Vincent: wag kg
Vincent: wag ka gagalaw
Hazel Giraldi: ok
Hazel Giraldi: ill wait
Vincent: yeah just stay put
Vincent: dont even think about moving
Vincent: or blinking
Vincent:
Vincent: gotcha
Hazel Giraldi:
Vincent: ano nga ulit names ng kids mo ate?
Vincent: hello?
Vincent: jan ka pa?
Vincent: wala na?
Vincent: yoohoooo?
Hide Recent Messages (F3)
Hazel Giraldi appears to be offline and will receive your messages after signing in. You can also send a message to Hazel Giraldi's mobile device.
Send an SMS Message (Ctrl+T)
Vincent: o ate y di ka na ans?
Vincent: busy?
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Comments
Good thing, you found out the good-for-nothing SOB before he/she could do further damage. I'll update my link when I get home.
Mahalia...
p.s. update ko ang link mo maya maya
I asked the person "sino ka?" Haze daw. Sabi ko sino ako? Di sumagot instead "she" invited me to see her cam. May nagpakita naman babae sya and believe me may resemblance sayo, tas bigla sabi 50pcs daw na tig 500 Globe kelangan nya. Sabi ko kung ganun karami dapat sa supplier sya talaga bumili. Ayun naglaho na!
so good of you to warn friends and family about this, kaya pag may nag alok sakin nang ganyan, I know what to do! so, thanks for the warning :-)
I like your new URL :-)
anyway, I hope your weekend goes smoothly...may it be an enjoyable one.
Thess
Sus, grabeh.
I will pass your postblog in my blog to warn all possible victims.
Bah, okey siya sa pain niya.
Kikita ka ng doble...
Etc etc...
This is a public info that is VERY usefl to all internet users.
Meron ako na rcvd na yahoo update mail sa yahoo mail ko. I didnt even bother, kasi that mail will ask me to give my password.
bah bah bah....
Ano, bale.
Good work HAZE to publish the issue.
I read this entry, thanks for sharing..I will try to blog about this and link it here. Napansin ko kasi sa yahoo msgr. , there could be a security breach, I've been getting offline msgs from unknown handles. I mark them as spam and delete immediately, pero, i'm still getting them .
It's good to warn others.
Thanks.
but why were you obliged to change url din? you couldn't access to your blogspot na din afterwards?
To add more tips on this:
For those who use Yahoo Messenger to get in touch ONLY with family & friends (as opposed to using it for chat rooms), you know them well enough. When Hazel changed her font, the size & color within minutes without explanation, even when I asked her, I found that weird. Yes, sometimes it pays to PRY on little details. When your YM is hacked, your message archive & the font you used are not included.
On your Yahoo Messenger, make sure that your online status is not shown on Yahoo! websites. To check this, on your YM, go to "Messenger" (on the top bar menu) & click on "Pivacy Options" so unchecking it will not allow Yahoo! to show your online status. This will hopefully stop messages from strangers & possibly remove you from the target list.
Before signing-in on any website, be sure that it's "https" and there's a presence of a padlock on the lower right side of the site. Yahoo! Flickr, Hotmail & Gmail all have "https" with the padlocks.
Try to break the habit of having one username & password for everything. When your password is phished, they will have access to your Yahoo email & get information, giving them more list of contacts. They might probably try your phished password to Friendster, Facebook, etc to get more contacts to scam.
And always trust your instincts! I found Hazel's hacker so impolite & demanding. Not Hazel-like at all. So again, I pried on the file they tried to send before downloading it (yes, I downloaded it but didn't sign-in) & I would have made funny faces to them if they asked politely (yes, I did plug my webcam for them but I just pointed the webcam on the wall). But I was that close to being hacked because I thought it was Hazel with a really bad mood!
Sorry for taking up so much space here Haze! I leave the rest of the info for you to blog. LOL.
kababasa ko lang din last week nung kay kengkay.wordpress.com ganyan din yung nangyari. kaya ang prevention ko na ginagawa sapul pa noon, never ako nagaadd sa YM ng di ko kakilala. madami na beses nag add sa akin, i think lampas na ng 50 and when you check their profile, kagagawa lang ng email add nila. even sa friendster I dont add people na di ko kakilala. sa aking contact page na lang di lumalampas ng bente ang kumokontak sa akin every week at kung ano anong link ang binibigay.
para malaman mo na safe yung link at website na binibigay nila,
1. gumamit ka ng firefox, opera, safari but never IE
2. look for the lock icon beside the address bar and the status bar. the lock icon represents authenticity of the site
3. review the web address. yung sa iyo na flickr, may nagsend na sa akin nyan via email. Pinapa log in nya ako sa account ko sa flickr. Pero when I checked the URL, the URL was www.FLICKER.COM, ang flickr ay walang letter e. so I immediately went off the site and reported the incident to flickr.
its better to be skeptic than be gullible. kaya pag may nagmessage sayo sa ym ang una mo gawin tanungin mo agad sya ng detail na kayo lang nung friend mo nakaka alam. pag di nya nasagot yun, yun na ang hacker.
and always stay invisible kasi yang mga hacker tinitingnan nila kung sino online. if you are invisible then most likely they will not bother you.
and if you are suspicious, always ask the owner via friendster, text o email kung sya nga ba yung nag message sayo before answering any messages coming from a suspicious account.
lately mix added me in his second account in friendster. pag ka add ko sa kanya tinanong ko agad sya ng mga detail na kamilang may alam. ayun sya pala yun and nagpalit sya ng yahoo id kasi madami daw spam ang YM nya. always verify the source of the message.
Makakarma din yung hacker na yon...