A McKinney mom and blogger had a busy Labor Day changing passwords and warding off fraud after hackers appeared to target her email account.
"It's been ridiculous," said Janette Johanson, author of 'The Johanson Journey,' a blog focused on her family and their lives.
Beginning Monday morning, an untold number of emails purportedly from Johanson's Gmail account were sent out to not only every person in her contact list but also, seemingly, to every account to which she had ever sent an email.
The text of the email reads as follows:
Am so sorry to bother you, am in a terrible situation right now and will need your urgent help. I am in Istanbul, Turkey at the moment and I just misplaced my bag containing my passport, phone and money.
I've contacted my bank, the best they can do is to send me a new card which will take 3-4 working days. I am trying to sort things out with the necessary authorities, I need you to lend me some money to sort my self out of this predicament,i will pay back once i make it out of Turkey.
Western union is the fastest option to wire funds to me. Let me know if you need my details(full names on ID/location) to effect a transfer.
--
Hugs!
Janette
Johanson said she learned of what was happening after several friends began to contact her via text and Facebook while she was out shopping.
"Then finally a friend of mine called and was like, 'Hey, are you doing OK?' And I said, 'Yeah I'm doing fine.' And they said, 'We just got an email from you. I think your email's been hacked.'" Johanson said.
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Adding to Johanson's confusion is that her parents are currently vacationing in Turkey.
"Very, very strange coincidence," Johanson said.
Johanson later discovered that someone had attempted to change the password to her Paypal account, and that all of her email from her Gmail account was being automatically forwarded to a similarly named Yahoo email account.
"In the moment you don't even know what else was being effected," Johanson said. "It's disturbing."
According to Google, when someone is sending email from your address, you may be the victim of a so-called "spoofing" attack. Spoofing means faking the return address on outgoing mail to hide the true origin of the message.
To the best of Johanson's knowledge, no one has fallen for the scheme.
"[But] I think all it takes is just one person to say, 'Oh, you need money? OK, well, where do I send it?'" Johanson said.
