Hacker Exploits Gmail Flaw, Steals Designer's Domain

[kaffee]

British designer David Airey shares how his Gmail was hacked, his domain stolen and held hostage, and what we can do about it.

WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged
Published on December 24th, 2007

"What would you do if a criminal stole something very personal, and very valuable from you?
What if they were able to target your business and criple your income?
You wouldn’t be too happy now, would you?
What if you also discovered that this was happening because of a Google security infection that can affect every GMail user on the planet?
That’s what has just happened to me, and here I’m going to tell you my story. I will detail everything I know about the web pirates
who are threatening my livelihood, and tell you what you need to know in order to avoid the same thing happening to you."

more here.

[joel]

Thanks for sharing! This *is* scary.

I immediately checked my Gmail filters to see if there are dubious entries!

[maryannemoll]

Yikes! This is very bad news. I remember the story of our very own chairman's (Dikoy, not Elbert) brother's Gmail account getting hacked months ago. But I suppose that for the really adamant hackers, anything is possible.

[kaffee]

Thanks for sharing! This *is* scary.

I immediately checked my Gmail filters to see if there are dubious entries!

Your welcome, joel. I've been meaning to check my spam filter for days now because the entries there jump to about 50 or more in a day and I've been missing out on many expected mails in the past few weeks. I am hoping to do just that starting tomorrow or this weekend. My spam inbox has been attracting some legitimate mails even with some stringent filtering on. First it was the attachment issues on Safari, but even more annoying is when I'm told some important mail or other has been sent and I discover them buried under spam. I'd even have to scroll down Spam pages of it to check. Such a waste of precious [crunch] time.

Yikes! This is very bad news. I remember the story of our very own chairman's (Dikoy, not Elbert) brother's Gmail account getting hacked months ago. But I suppose that for the really adamant hackers, anything is possible.

Maryanne, "when there's a will...".
:slanted:

[John H]

Wow that's terrible. What is Google's response to this?

Edit: Wow that was a long read but I'm glad that person somehow got his domain back! Must be quite a huge hassle!!!

[maryannemoll]

I admire him for sticking to his principles and not paying the domain thief a single cent. It would have been less of a hassle to buy back his domain at the "Christmas promo price (:slanted" but still he went the long way and went through the proper channels.

I wish we could all be that diligent and principled. But more than that, I hope none of our accounts ever get hacked!

[John H]

I admire him for sticking to his principles and not paying the domain thief a single cent. It would have been less of a hassle to buy back his domain at the "Christmas promo price (:slanted" but still he went the long way and went through the proper channels.

I wish we could all be that diligent and principled. But more than that, I hope none of our accounts ever get hacked!

I doubt anybody with a sense of pride and self respect would never paid that hacker anything even if it means they won't get their domain back.

[dralnux]

thanks for the info dude.

[kaffee]

Update on David Airey: he got his "~.com" domain back. davidairey.com.
It does pay to make noise.

[MDS818]

thanks for this useful information. Great he got it back.