email account has been compromised.

Okay so my gmail account has been compromised. :S The last time I was able to sign in was yesterday. I'm guessing whoever stole my account changed the password.

I'm particularly concerned as I have details of a sensitive nature within. Is it possible for me to "hack" and get my account back?

thanks.

** crap I accidentally posted this twice.. sorry.

You can delete the other thread if you click "edit" and choose to delete your post.

msay wrote: Is it possible for me to "hack" and get my account back?

Yes its possible.

Well I'm thinking it's related to an event which occurred sometime ago.

When I was on msn a while ago I received one of those annoying viruses from my friend, which said click on bla bla bla.. but the thing which freaked me out was that my password was written in plaintext underneath it.

Naturally I changed my password after this, but since my gmail + hotmail accounts had the same password at the time I have reason to believe the person may have installed a backdoor of some sort in my gmail account.

So yea what can I do? Or am I screwed..

msay wrote: When I was on msn a while ago I received one of those annoying viruses from my friend, which said click on bla bla bla.. but the thing which freaked me out was that my password was written in plaintext underneath it. You have probably clicked it and entered your password earlier, so it already "knew" your password.

Naturally I changed my password after this, but since my gmail + hotmail accounts had the same password at the time I have reason to believe the person may have installed a backdoor of some sort in my gmail account.

Good that you changed your password, but you can't "install a backdoor on a gmail account".

So yea what can I do? Or am I screwed.. Make sure you use different passwords for all sites/services (good ones, preferrably 10+ alphanumeric characters and symbols).

Nope, I didn't click on the virus. I'm really confused, how did they then change the password for the gmail account? I really need it back as it has my banking info within :S

There are many ways to get an account. They could have guessed the answer to your secret question. They could have guessed/brute forced your password. They could have SE'd you. You could have a Key Logger on your machine which they used to get your information…I can go on but the bottom line is try to recover it yourself. Check the secret question and give the answer ;) try all the things I just mentioned.

Uber0n wrote: but you can't "install a backdoor on a gmail account".

Irrelevant to the topic at hand, but this statement isn't -entirely- true, uber0n.

MoshBat wrote: True in the sense that nobody going after emails (usually via secret question) would be able to do that.

Your assumptions are baseless and unfounded.

Welcome back btw.

Ok I have my account back now thanks.. I never had a secret q, but yea my password wasn't very complex probably.

ty all.

One thing you may look for, the virus may very well be a keylogger.

Um, i'm confused about something. How did you manage to get your account back so easily? Was it really compromised and if so, did the person set a password/security question that you managed to answer? If I were you and it turned out that my account was hacked, I would be a bit more worried. Also, you said some banking info was on your account. You should contact the bank and make sure everything is alright. In addition, be sure to scan your computer and get rid of whatever might be there.

<Off-topic>Well, the flaming seems to have toned down a bit since my last login</Off-topic>

My apologies, I stopped reading 2 posts before that.

Why post in a thread you're not reading?

jjbutler88 wrote: Why post in a thread you're not reading? It's not that hard to believe. I'm doing it right now.

ynori7 Said:
It's not that hard to believe. I'm doing it right now. Nice!