My Gmail Account been jacked...

[MasterNetra]

I found myself today wondering what exactly I got myself into with my student loans, e.g. any collateral, etc etc (was rather brain dead so to speak when I first enter into collage, and it has a way of bringing people out of it). So forgetting my login crap for sallie Mae I have it send me my login name to my "master" gmail account. The one I dedicate for sensitive stuff and don't put out otherwise. So I try to login with my usual "secure" password which is more then 12 chars long and to my surprise, *buzz* wrong. Do all the passwords that I would of use and nothing...thinking I might of changed it at some point I simply go to reset like I do at times but to my surprise the reset email address it would go to is a hotmail one with its prefix (while censored the dots are their in accurate count of the actual characters) at 6 chars. So what you may ask?

1. My recovery email was my secondary gmail account.

2. I never had a hotmail account with its prefix at 6 chars. They have
all been longer.

What sucks is I don't remember when it was created and had to guess, but I did have it linked to my secondary to make it a bit easier to manage things. Hopefully Google will see that and it will provide me with the credit I need to convinced them that this is a legitimate claim...Guess I'll find out.

[CharlesA]

Best thing to do would probably be to contact gmail support and see if they can help you get access to that account back.

Looks like you already did that, so best of luck. :)

[MasterNetra]

Best thing to do would probably be to contact gmail support and see if they can help you get access to that account back.

I just did...and got a reply after posting here that they weren't able to verify...My bank statements go there too... This is a very crappy situation...

[CharlesA]

That sucks big time. If you can't get access to that account, I suppose the only other thing you could do is contact the other companies and see what you can do.

[wojox]

I had the same problem. Gmail support is of no help. After about a week of banging my head against the wall it finally came to me. Give it time. It'll come to you. :)

[Sub101]

That sucks big time. If you can't get access to that account, I suppose the only other thing you could do is contact the other companies and see what you can do.

Yeh, get on the phone to your bank if non of the others and stop the bank statements going there.

I think all banks are different but for mine you can do an awful lot from the authorised email account.

That being said, to brute force a 12 char password (and you sound like a security minded individual and would use numbers etc) is very unlikely....

[MasterNetra]

That sucks big time. If you can't get access to that account, I suppose the only other thing you could do is contact the other companies and see what you can do.

Well atm trying to devert what i can to a email address under my control still. My active bank accounts are away from it. Seems I was smart enough prior to do so. A less then active account I setup, a Navy Federal account which really has nothing in it, but still, still is directed to that account. As well as my Sallie Mae crap.

[MasterNetra]

A breath of good news is that it seems I was mistaken about that compromised account being the email reocvery for sallie mae. I seemed to have had changed that to my secondary account. Yay for me. Leaves Navy Federal though... which I know for a fact still is attached to that account.

[bitscarre]

Oh man, that sucks big time, having your email account compromised, which brings the question, what do you people do to protect yourselves while browsing the web?

[juancarlospaco]

Damn SSL, eats CPU on Server side, still tunnel-able on Client side.

[MasterNetra]

Oh man, that sucks big time, having your email account compromised, which brings the question, what do you people do to protect yourselves while browsing the web?

I have better privacy which clears my flash cookies at close, I usually go into private browsing and clear cookies before hitting into a sensitive thing but not always. I'm a bit absent minded. I generally use heavy passwords for the sensitive stuff even tossing in symbols when I can.

[NCLI]

I have better privacy which clears my flash cookies at close, I usually go into private browsing and clear cookies before hitting into a sensitive thing but not always. I'm a bit absent minded. I generally use heavy passwords for the sensitive stuff even tossing in symbols when I can.
For the future, try using LastPass to generate and store secure passwords securely. Then you just have to come up with one extremely secure password to protect your LastPass account.

[sgosnell]

I use KeepassX for storing my passwords. It can generate random passwords of any length, as can several Firefox plugins. I can't remember very many of my passwords, but I can copy/paste from KeepassX, and I keep copies of that database in several locations, just in case. I have a complex password on that, but I can remember it because I use it a lot.

[MasterNetra]

For the future, try using LastPass to generate and store secure passwords securely. Then you just have to come up with one extremely secure password to protect your LastPass account.

LastPass? Never heard of it.

Side note, yay! I finally got into my navy federal account and applied for email changed amongst a needed address and telephone change.

[CharlesA]

I use KeePass as well. Not having to remember 20+ char passwords is nice...

Glad to hear you were able to access some of yer accounts. :)

[theraje]

I store my passwords in an old-fashioned Moleskine notebook. I store my Moleskine in a fireproof lockbox. I store my lockbox in an inconspicuous hiding place. I store the keys to my lockbox in a separate inconspicuous hiding place.

Of course, it's all in vain -- there are *plenty* of ways for people to steal your passwords, or even access your accounts without your passwords.

I just do it like that because I enjoy obfuscating my life. :P

[geoffmcc]

This happened to me a few months back and all info was reset so i couldn't get my account back.

I started getting a lot of calls about the weird email i sent out and what was going on. As it turned out a scam email was sent to my family cause they were in my address book telling them i was in some foreign jail and needed money.

Anyways, I contacted google threw automated process. By the way was all sorts of questions would be impossible to answer and no misc box to really say what you wanted to say.

I filled every one of them fields up with what i wanted to say wich was that its my account i had for years and person who took it is sending fraud spam to my family, and then suggested they add a box to make a statement like that easier in future (i assume they didn't)

But it worked. Someone at google actually got my message and restored my account to me. Funny thing too was it was my spam address, so in my real gmail address i got that fraud letter and remember deleting it noticing the person had same spelling of my first name- didn't even notice it was from my account.

[MasterNetra]

This happened to me a few months back and all info was reset so i couldn't get my account back.

I started getting a lot of calls about the weird email i sent out and what was going on. As it turned out a scam email was sent to my family cause they were in my address book telling them i was in some foreign jail and needed money.

Anyways, I contacted google threw automated process. By the way was all sorts of questions would be impossible to answer and no misc box to really say what you wanted to say.

I filled every one of them fields up with what i wanted to say wich was that its my account i had for years and person who took it is sending fraud spam to my family, and then suggested they add a box to make a statement like that easier in future (i assume they didn't)

But it worked. Someone at google actually got my message and restored my account to me. Funny thing too was it was my spam address, so in my real gmail address i got that fraud letter and remember deleting it noticing the person had same spelling of my first name- didn't even notice it was from my account.

Dunno but gonna keep bugging them... I don't know how they expect people to remember when a mult-year account was made...

[MasterNetra]

Trying LastPass, loving not have to remember countless passwords already/ ^.^ any good random password generators? I know that passx thing mention was said to have one but any independent password generators? That allows you to select length and what characters are generated?

[TNT1]

When my gmail account wqas jacked, I found the Gmail support people to be be super fast and efficient. Had my access back in a couple of hours.

[MasterNetra]

When my gmail account wqas jacked, I found the Gmail support people to be be super fast and efficient. Had my access back in a couple of hours.

oh they've responded quickly alright but none of the times did I get my account back...

[TNT1]

oh they've responded quickly alright but none of the times did I get my account back...


That sucks.

[MasterNetra]

Still though anyone know of a good random password generator that allows you to choose char length?

[bitscarre]

http://tinyurl.com/compc

Thanks for the KeePass recomendation. Trying it now as well.

[Arla]

Still though anyone know of a good random password generator that allows you to choose char length?

Seriously recommend you give KeePassX a try, has the ability to generate the passwords, can specify length (I know the default length it has is 25 characters) can specify what types of characters to include, can specify whether it must include at least one of each, so far only one password I've needed has eluded the automatic generator (some random password I needed, and the site insisted the password had at least 3 numbers, not seen a requirement like that anywhere else).

[MasterNetra]

http://tinyurl.com/compc

Thanks for the KeePass recomendation. Trying it now as well.

Thanks for the link. ^.^


Seriously recommend you give KeePassX a try, has the ability to generate the passwords, can specify length (I know the default length it has is 25 characters) can specify what types of characters to include, can specify whether it must include at least one of each, so far only one password I've needed has eluded the automatic generator (some random password I needed, and the site insisted the password had at least 3 numbers, not seen a requirement like that anywhere else).

Navy Federal forces you to a max of 8 chars...but I will next time I'm on my admin account.

[wilee-nilee]

Still though anyone know of a good random password generator that allows you to choose char length?

pwgen in Linux will give you a bunch, and you can link them together to get as long of a password that is allowed. You have to install pwgen the just in the terminal run pwgen.
175803

Personally I wouldn't bank on line ever but thats just me.;)

[bitscarre]

pwgen in Linux will give you a bunch, and you can link them together to get as long of a password that is allowed. You have to install pwgen the just in the terminal run pwgen.
175802



Personally I wouldn't bank on line ever but thats just me.;)


You forgot to censor the window name of your screenshot :D

[wilee-nilee]

You forgot to censor the window name of your screenshot :D

Doh, in the voice of Homer Simpson, it's fixed.;)

[sgosnell]

For a password generator, try Secure Password Generator or pwgen for Firefox. They both generate random passwords of whatever length you specify, using whatever characters you want included. You can specify which non-alphabetic characters you want, which is essential because different sites have different rules. Having it in Firefox is handy, because you're usually in the browser anyway, and they will generate the password and put it on your clipboard at the same time, so you just paste into the password box. With KeepassX, you can do the same thing. But with the password already on the clipboard, you can just paste it again into KeepassX or whatever password safe you use.

[MasterNetra]

lol turns out my account wasn't jacked after all, apparently I changed the pass at some point to one I don't use often. I finally remembered it and tried it, sure enough I logged in. Don't i feel like a idiot...oh well LastPass knows it now, shouldn't a issue for now on... Thread wasn't a waste though as I've been introduced to LastPass which has already proven to be quite helpful. ^.^

As for the censor thing apparently its 6 dots regardless of length, what threw me I guess is that the hotmail portion of it (h+6 dots) which matches length letter for letter but apparently that's just a coincidence. lol I'm too easily confused. :P

[CharlesA]

Glad you got it sorted. :)

[MasterNetra]

Glad you got it sorted. :)

So am I, by rank its the oldest account I have left. All my older ones I lost due to forgetting the password and recovery info...