Internet Security

I have never been that cautious about my internet security, until around midday yesterday.

My housemate called and told me I'd been sending advertisement emails to him with my Gmail account which I obviously hadn't. I checked my inbox immediately and found a few 'refused to deliver' notifications and in the sent mail was a lot of spams I did not authorize sending. I acted fast and changed my Gmail password immediately but harm's already done so I had to also post an update on facebook apologizing to whoever that might be affected for something that is not really my fault.

While running on a full system virus scan I checked the Gmail access history. There was one log in from Henan province, China which I do not recognize. That's it. My Gmail password was compromised and started embarrassing me and all whomever I have contacted during the years. I feel deeply sorry for what happened but turned out my computer was not infected with virus or Trojan to the best knowledge of AntiVir. I do not know how my account info could be leaked to some random people in China, but this had raised deep concerns. My Gmail account is like the most important account to me on the internet for my youtube, google services, blogger, facebook login etc, plus bills and receipts from mobile provider, online shops... I do not know whether the intruders have accessed those but I'd be deeply worried if they did.

At least for now the account seems safe and no further spams were seen sending out of it, I do need to be way more careful from now on to protect my password and stuff, and probably create more weird and hard to remember passwords for myself :S

The attack also brought some surprise. It seems that even if I deleted some of the contacts and their messages completely those people were still able to receive those spams, of course they are not very welcomed in my life and they obviously knew it. I started receiving hate mails which I did not know whether they directing at me or the spam, but whichever I chose to ignore. They are out of my life and they had better stay that way. I am happy with what I turned out to be at the moment, without them.