Yesterday, I was hacked. Well, not me, but my Gmail account. At 7:30 in the morning, I received a text from my friend asking me to call her. She was concerned because she received an email saying I’d been robbed in England and needed money wired. Actually, here’s the exact phrasing (italics mine), which I didn’t see until hours later:

I freaked out. I wasn’t near a computer with which I could access my account and when my brothers tried, they found the password changed as well as the backup email address. Then I realized that my Gmail account is attached to other things, too: my bank account, shared calendars, website traffic information, subscriber information. I freaked out more.

This happens frequently. So Google has a page to help you and a specific form for when the entire account has been compromised. Thankfully, Gmail resolved the issue within an hour of sending my form to them and I am now, apparently, hacker-free. Sorry friends, family and ex-lovers for the inconvenience.

Throughout the day, I received calls from administrators in both the School of Art and English Department, my ex-stepmother, some friends in the department (one concerned, others to make fun of the grammar of the email), and a few text messages from people who I assume are friends, but since this is my fourth phone of the year, I’ve lost nearly all of my numbers. All of this was endearing. Touching, even.

It turns out this is an old trick. In March, Edward Mendelson wrote a much more interesting report of a stolen Gmail account with a similar story. And a week or so later, PC Mag discussed the scam, noting that Gmail had added additional security features to warn you if your account has been accessed from another country. I was on Gmail at 11:30pm; eight hours later, the hack. When I did get back into the system, I still had to close my bank account because of the security breach (a CIA-sounding term). Also, all of my contacts had been erased and there were no new emails. A setting had been changed to forward new emails to another account and the originals deleted. You sly bastard.

The most offensive component of the scam, I hope we can agree, is the abominable use of grammar. Were I kidnapped abroad and my life in danger, my sentence structure would maintain its integrity. I’m in a writing program, after all. Nor would I use capitalization and spacing so carelessly. Next, while I find English phrasing charming (ie. lodged), I wouldn’t suddenly use it like Madonna. Lastly, let’s talk about the gun. Guns are illegal in England, which isn’t to say they don’t exist but the likelihood of me getting robbed at gun-point (and then finding a public internet cafe to write to my friends) is highly unlikely. Perhaps another country would be more believable.

It seems a lot of email accounts and blogs are being hacked these days. Here are a few things I’ll do differently from now on.

• Create a Strong Password. Use uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers. Also, make up a phrase that you know well, but can’t be linked to you (as in your name or birthday).
• Diversify. Use different passwords for different accounts. While annoying, this prevents a situation in which all of your accounts are accessible to criminals.
• Use a Secure Internet Connection. My dad has repeatedly warned me about internet security, and I’ve uniformly ignored him. Paranoid is the word I’ve used. Alas, he’s right. For the past few weeks, I’ve been using public internet connections to check my email and Twitter in various locations. No more!
• Logout of Your Accounts. When closing up your email or any site that you log into, make sure to logout as well, to lessen the time in which your information is accessible.
• If you receive a spam email, contact your friend. If you’re on the receiving end of a spam email, call or email your friend. It’s polite and makes her feel especially wanted. Also, you might be lucky enough to talk to the hacker, as Mendelson did and find out more. It’s unlikely the person will be caught, but you might be able to collect some valuable insight.

Anyway, my account, it seems so far, has been recovered. All open emails have been deleted, which is kind of relieving in a way. I’d wish bad things to the hacker but I imagine him to live in a shed in a depleted place, which is enough.