AACK! What to do when you’ve been High-Jacked

Patricia Bradley High-jacked 22 Comments

Usually I don’t have my phone turned on to receive tweets. Especially at night. But for some reason…call me crazy…I did last Friday night. And at 2 am, I received a tweet. Of course I had to look to see what it was about. Half asleep, I fumbled for my phone. The tweet said someone was spreading ugly rumors about me. So of course, I had to see who…

But the URL on the tweet didn’t work, so I turned over and went back to my Ambien-induced sleep. Saturday morning when I checked my email, a dear friend had sent me a message that her Twitter account had been hacked. Even then, it didn’t occur to me that by clicking on the URL at 2 am, mine had been hacked as well. But by 9, I knew. I had several messages from followers who wanted to know why ugly rumors were floating around about them. Or where was that photo someone took and was splashing all over the Internet.

So what do you do when you get high-jacked or hacked?

First thing is to change your Twitter password…and if you use the same password for other websites as you do Twitter (like I did—I mean, hey, it’s hard to keep up with all those passwords), you need to change them as well.To changed your Twitter password, click on the little man icon.

Go down to settings and click on that.

There you’ll see this list: Password, Mobile, Notifications, Profile, Design and Apps. Click on Password and follow the directions to change your password.

 

Now, when you’re done, go to the Apps section and see who has access access to your account.

 

When I clicked on the URL in the tweet at 2 am, I gave spammers access to my Twitter account. So I revoked access to everyone on the list. That’s probably overkill, and I’ll probably go back and allow some of mine, but not anytime soon.

When you’re done with Twitter, do the same thing for every account you have if you used the same password on those accounts. I had several accounts with that same password, and I’d been meaning for some time to change them.

Getting hacked on Twitter was embarrassing, but it wasn’t all bad. I changed my passwords so I have no two alike. And I learned I have some very nice people following me. Thank you for being so understanding!

If you’ve ever been high-jacked leave a comment and tell me your tale of woe. And if you haven’t been, tell me what you’re doing right.
Photo of pirate from Printshop.

Comments 22

  1. Reba J. Hoffman

    Sorry about the hack but great to know you are dealing with it in a constructive way. Great post and awesome advice for anyone who wants to avoid getting hacked.

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  2. Edie Melson

    Pat, you and I think alike. This is the topic I wrote a blog post on for tomorrow. I really don’t know of anyone who’s never been hacked. It’s embarrassing, but happens to us all. The only thing I’d add is to never click on anything you’re not one hundred percent sure of. Blessings, E

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      P. T. Bradley

      You are so right, Edie! I’ve learned my lesson…it’s just that I really wanted to know who would say bad things about me. lol

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  3. Renee O.

    Excellent post, Pat. I would add that you should never click on a link in a twitter or Facebook email…or in any email, for that matter, unless you absolutely know for sure that it’s not a virus. My rule of thumb: any such link is guilty until proven innocent. I’ve escaped getting hacked partly by God’s grace, but partly because my husband is an information security manager and has drilled certain things into me, such as using safe passwords and being suspicious of any link or document or PDF file that isn’t expected. You can oftentimes tell by the tone or language in the email body as well, or lack thereof. Sometimes we click on links by mistake. Hovering over one too long can actually open it, depending on computer settings. But vigilance is the key. Don’t store your passwords in your computer anywhere, either, because they can be easily found by hackers and exploited.

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      P. T. Bradley

      Johnnie, I hope you haven’t stored your passwords anywhere on your computer…like I did. But now, I’ve moved them.

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      P. T. Bradley

      Hey, M-Tagg…you know I don’t understand what hackers get out of doing things like this. If they’d only put that genius into something worthwhile!

  4. Paula

    Wow, thanks for the information on how to deal with this. Our university emails were frequently hacked but I hadn’t thought about Twitter.

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      P. T. Bradley

      Evidently Twitter is really easy to hack, Paula. But I learned so many things from this experience!

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  5. Jessica R. Patch

    My email was hacked not long ago. Apparently, I was in Spain and had no cash to get home. Everyone bombarded me through fb/email/txt/twitter to let me know, “I knew that wasn’t true, you’d have been more creative!” lol But the hackers messed with my system and I couldn’t change my password!!! I had to wait 3 days and then talk to a live person through yahoo.

    I changed all my passwords b/c I had the same ones as well. A big fat hassle to say the least! Glad you got it fixed!

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      P. T. Bradley

      Oh, No, Jessica! It scares me just to think what hackers can do. At least now, no two accounts have the same password. Now how to keep up with which password goes with which account. Took me 5 minutes to log into WordPress. lol

  6. Jill Kemerer

    It’s so common—I’m never offended when I get a spammy DM or e-mail from a friend. I know they’ve been hacked! Thank goodness it’s easy to fix. 🙂 Great tips here!

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