Hacked

So my Gmail account was hacked into yesterday. I first realized it in the early evening when I went to go login and it told me my password was invalid. So I requested that Gmail send a password reset email to my old drpeterjones email. I haven’t logged into that account in ages, because I have all emails that are sent there forwarded to my Gmail account. Once I got it to load up (which took forever since it was SO full), I saw that there was a password reset email in there from 9:00 in the morning. I hadn’t requested Gmail send one until around 5:00 p.m., so it was then that Greg and I determined that the person had probably hacked into my drpeterjones email and then used that one to get into my Gmail.

Based on that speculation, we deleted that old email account once I had used my password reset email to reset my Gmail password to a new password. As a safety precaution, I also updated the passwords on some of my other important accounts (credit cards, ebay, paypal).

Since I was able to successfully change my password on my Gmail account and log back in, I figured all was well.

Then, this morning, I checked my email and saw that there was a password reset for my YouTube account from 2:22 a.m. Why someone would want to hack into that account, I have no idea. But when I went to login, sure enough, they had changed my password. ARGH. I was able to use that same reset password email that they had used and set it back to something of my choice. Nothing appears to be changed.

But that means they still somehow have access to my Gmail. I am guessing that they haven’t logged out so my password change hasn’t taken effect? I have an email into Gmail support explaining the issue. I did get a return response, but it looked like a template response telling me how to reset my password, which my email to them had stated that I had already done, but apparently they didn’t read it.

Just to be safe after this since I do live a lot of my life online, I signed up for Identity Theft Protection.

This whole thing is driving me crazy though. I wish I knew how this happened. I feel so violated.