~*~*~BEWARE HACKERS~*~*~
I'm not going to bother making the page look pretty, this isn't a pretty subject. These are a few facts you need to know. As I find out more I'll add them.
As you may know, I nearly lost my groups, along with several others belonging to friends. I'll explain how it happened, and how to guard against it.
The scum who took over the groups did so by 'stealing' my daughters net passport. It is so easy for someone to do this to you.
Is your password something that someone could guess? Your childrens names, your pets names? is it something you may talk about, for instance, on a message board, in your MSN profile, change it now.
If the hacker can't guess the password they click on 'forgotten my password' and this takes them to a page where it asks for your secret question. (you are asked to make one up, when you make your passport) Again, is your secret question something you openly talk about, or something on display in your profile? If so use the link above to go and change it.
A good idea is to change your password and secret question every few weeks anyway. Remember to write it down though.
If a hacker can guess the answer, they have your passport, your hotmail account, and all of your communities.
If they can't guess, there are other ways to get the password. After losing a community to hackers the first time, I changed my secret question to a jumble of words that made no sense, and an answer that had no relation to this, so the hacker used a 'password grabber'. They came onto my daughters messenger, pretending to be a new member at her site and asked if she would upload a picture for them. As soon as she 'accepted' the download, they had the password. There was no picture, it was a hacking program to get the password. It gave them total access to everything on my hard drive!
Anyone with half a brain can get, and use one of these hacking programs. I typed the word 'hacking' into the community search box and the first 20 or so 'hacking' sites (and there were hundereds in the list) all offered downloads of password grabbers, and instructions on how to use one.
THAT SIMPLE.
So if your email is on display, anyone can 'steal' it from you. Once they have it, all they have to do is change the password and secret question and it is theirs, you are blocked out. They have access to everything.
After the hackers had stolen my daughters passport, they went through every community where she was a manager and banned all of the other managers and assistant managers, so we were then locked out of all of our sites, and also the sites of people who we were helping out. They had full controll, to do as they liked.
For weeks they kept the sites, MSN claimed they could not help. The hackers came on messenger and taunted us, keeping the sites open, but not giving them back. I finally gained access to one of the stolen passports, then took back the sites before any more damage was done. We were lucky, only 1 site was deleted.
Now, some tips to make it harder for this to happen to you.
Don't choose a password that can be guessed, make it something random, not related to you. Write it down somewhere safe, but where no one can find it.
Make sure no one else can answer, or guess your secret question.
Change your password and secret question often.
When you build, or join a community, tick the box to hide your email address from the other members.
If you are a manager, add a 'contact me' form to your homepage, it doesn't display your email address, and then members can still contact you privately.
It's not just hackers you must worry about, people join MSN groups with the intent of gathering emails to sell to companies, this is where all your spam comes from.
Then there is spoofers, they copy your email and pretend to be you. They will send abusive emails in your name, leave terrible messages that look as though you have sent them. At best, you could be banned from thr groups you belong to for abusive behaviour, at worst, you could loose very good friends because of the emails they send out in your name. This in itself is reason enough to hide your email.
The golden rule, DO NOT ACCEPT DOWNLOADS FROM PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW. (If my daughter had said, 'post the picture at the community', she would still have a community!!!) We all remember the messenger virus that signed onto your account disguised as one of your contacts, and then asked if you'd like to see thier latest pics!!! And why would you say 'NO' to your best friend? There is no need at all to accept anything through messenger, tell the person to send it to you via email, or post it in an album.
It is quite easy for someone to steal a vunerable passport belonging to someone you know, and impersonate that person, and get to you that way.
While the hackers had controll of my daughters passport they went into the communities where she was a member, pretended to be her, and asked the managers of those groups to make 'her' a manager. My daughter is not that cheeky, she would never make this request, but unfortunately, one young lady was trusting enough to do as they asked. She no longer has a community! They took over and then deleted all of her hard work. So never make anyone a 'full' manager, especially if they ask out of the blue, and out of nature.
Always make a 'back up' of your community by copying the pages to another private group.
If you do have your passport or community stolen contact MSN, straight away, using these addresses.
If you need anymore help, or information, leave me a message, and I'll do what I can.
~*~*~BEWARE HACKERS~*~*~
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Tutorial by Jan... Late to it Lesbians...