someone has hijacked my email account

JustPassingBy

alositha wrote: »

Hi Every one

1. Is there a organisation/telephone number where I could get some advice.
2. Can someone advice me reliable software that i can install to prevent these sort of phishing activities(I think it may be malacious programme installled somehow in my computer as my passwords can not be easily guessed as they have a name followed by some numbers).
Your support is greatly appreciated.
Thank You very much
Nuwan

Hi Nuwan.

I'm sure everyone here is glad you have your gmail account returned to you. Thanks for getting back to us with your detailed account of what happened.

Fraudsters are skilled at getting important information out of you without your realising they are doing it. One thing you can do is make a written record of everything that happened. It may or may not help to pinpoint exactly how it was done but it will be something to refer to. Memories fade.

Do a Google search with the keywords "fraud", "advice" and "internet". That throws up plenty of official advice. Make notes.

I didn't think software helped with phishing probes. It's more a matter of developing a rigorous approach to business matters and other activities conducted online.

Brian.

robt_2

Out of interest, why did you format both your computers?

alositha

Thank you very much for the advise Brian. I will do make a note of the events/things happened.

The reason for formatting hard drives was I was not sure how these people got my account information.
1. The email account I use with amazon is completely different to the email account I lost control with.
2. The password is again I don't think someone could guess as it was a name(Not english) followed by numbers.

I could not guess how these went into someone else's hand and i noticed the laptop was remarkably slow for example when typing I am few words ahead typing to what actually appears on the screen. I don't know they have anything to do with losing my password. So only option I had was to completely remove everything stored in the computer including if there was any malicious programmes.
I have avg anti virus and anti spyware programmes installed. Does anyone know whether these are enough to protect from these kind of attacks.

As Brian suggested i tried to find some softwares but how can someone be sure that they are harmless!! at the moment pretty pessimistic about everything.
Many thanks

SquatNow

It's worth noting that most times when an email account is hacked it by someone close to the account owner. (Partner, Friend, Family Member)

Everyone likes to snoop.

fwor

alositha wrote: »

I have avg anti virus and anti spyware programmes installed. Does anyone know whether these are enough to protect from these kind of attacks.

If your ADSL modem is connected via USB then you should have a firewall (one that is better than the basic Windows one). The free version of ZoneAlarm works well for most people.

The only other thing you don't mention is whether you keep Windows patched via Windows Autoupdate. If not and you use IE as your browser, your PC was extremely vulnerable. Even if you don't use IE, it was probably still vulnerable to port scanning attacks. So... keep it patched!

This also applies to other applications such as Flash and Acrobat Reader, both of which IIRC have had major flaws found and patched recently.