nasty little thieves

Apologies for swearing- (there is a lot lower down) and if I miss letters and spaces, because I'm using a tiny laptopwhose keyboard doesn't work.

I'musing this horrible little thingbecausse my home computer isn't safe.

I have deduced this because someone hacked our paypal account- using a keylogger program,probably- and usedit to send 1300 pounds to a company we've never used. This 1300 pounds was transferred directly out of our current acct, and is all the money we have for the month.

Fortunately, the bank and paypal are working on it and we thinh we can get the money back in a couple of days.
Iamchanging allmy passwords on this horrid machhine, and it won't break us, still. The fucking shitmonkey nasty little waste of space and oxygen. How dare they? Our rent goes out tomorrow! How are we supposed to cover it? That's allour money! the COCKFUCKSHITJOCKEY!

PLEASE be sure you have a goodantivirus, and keepan eye on you account for strangeoutgoings. Imight not be about for a coupleof days as we're going to strip and wipe the computer.

Right! It's back! Oh, internet I MISSED YOU.

OK, as far as we can figure out we got hit by a keylogger. We've transferred everything important, wiped the pc, rebuilt the pc, then scanne everything we put on the pc with an up-to-date malware protection program.

This is where having a husband who's in IT is very useful.

Fortunately his bank clawed the money back- because it went through paypal it was in that three-day transferring limbo- and it went back in our account yesterday. Both Paypals fraud team and hi banks fraud team are taking this very seriously. They;ve asked us if we mind them contacting the police on our behalf, we've said 'go right ahead'.

I have changed every single password I could access, and yesterday I got the bank to change the online banking info on my account.

It could have been so much worse, and I'm grateful it wasn't. But still. Should I find out who did this, they're in for a kicking, it was quite upsetting. We're not badly off, but we don't have much in the way of savings, and that money was all we had.

Still, it could have been much worse. It's just that we were having such a nice day, and then bam. Fuck you, thief.

I can understand stealing because you;re desperate or starving, and I would struggle to be morally offended over that. But the sort of person who can do this is not starving or desperate. They're just nasty and morally bankrupt.

The moneys still doing the transferring dance. It's there, technically, we just can;t get it till monday or tuesday.

I'm getting tired of this.

aruna said:

Phew! Thank goodness you got it back.

But your posts worry me. I do have anti-virus and malware, but I tend to be a bit lac about security, using one password for everything (an unguessable one!) and the same email login.
ANd what is a keylogger?

Just today I got pissed off with paypal because they did a security verification on me, forcing me to login by filling out a complete Visa card number -- but it's a card I no longer have and so don't have the number. I'll have to get it from my bank, or else open a new account.

Click to expand...

A keylogger is a piece of malware that gets on your computer and records your keystrokes. It then sends that data to another computer that analyses the data for passwords, bank card details etc. It is the easiest way to hack someones bank or paypal account.

If your computer is running slower than normal and starting up extra internet windows without your say so, it;s possible you have a keylogger.

Good security advice: have an anti-virus, a malware scanner and a firewall. Update them regularly. If something seems odd, check. Use a different password for the important things- your email is usually a security hole, because once they have your email log in they can harvest the info in there for everything.

A good piece of advice if you do a lot of shopping online is to have a seperate bank account for it. When you;re planning on shopping, just transfer money into it, and go ahead. It's a little awkward, but it means if you are hacked they only get a small amount of money.

Update: The money is back in our account.

Our rent payment bounced. However! The absolutely WONDERFUL man from Jos's bank called our rental agency himself and told them why it bounced. He did this after spending two hours trying various things to make the payment not bounce- forcing the payment through, giving us a 1 day extension on the overdraft- things like that. He is wonderful, and we will be writing to the bank with a letter saying how impressed we are.

He's going to remove any charges incurred from being in our overdraft and having payments bounce, too.

Not wireless here, but Jos probably uses a wireless connection at work.