My Gmail account ? hacked

[Carole]

I took the dog out yesterday and left my computer on, hubby was out.  When I got back my Gmail was logged out and when I tried to login it wanted to take me into a gmail address itzjout@gmail.com  - as if some-one else had logged in from my computer while I was out.  The only time I have to re-log in is when one of my children have used the computer and logged me out. 

Well both of them were at work and no-one else has a key to the house.  Hubby was out and in any case doesn't use a computer.

Is it possible that I can have been hacked remotely?

I did a spyware check yesterday and also changed my Gmail password this morning.

Puzzled and concerned.

I googled itzjout@gmail.com and it took me into a pornographic twitter account!!! with some-one using itzjout

Carole

[Mike]

Do you have anti-virus on the PC Carole? If so, is it up to date?

Very unlikely you have been hacked remotely. However, if your password was weak it could have been compromised.

Try and make passwords long and include upper and lower case letters as well as numbers. Easy to remember passwords are 3 words plus a number, e.,g,:

CatfishBananaYacht854

Never use names of places, people or pets or birth-dates in passwords.

https://www.cyberaware.gov.uk/passwords

To make your Gmail account ultra-secure, use Two-Factor Authentication.

Go to Control Panel then Programs and check there are no programs in the list you did not install yourself. If there are, uninstall it and run a virus scan.

it is very hard to 'hack' into someones PC. What usually happens is a person sends you an email, with a link in it, that you click and in doing so this either installs software or takes you to a site that does. Hence, never click links in emails, even if they appear to be from a 'friend'.

[Carole]

Thanks Mike, yes I do have antivirus and it's up to date.  As is my Antispyware.

I am pretty wised up to links in E Mails and have had a fair few over the years where other people's accounts seem to have been hacked into.

The strange thing is this E mail address feels slightly familiar but on searching my E Mail addresses, contacts etc I can find no trace of it, so maybe whatever it is has popped up before.

Only thing installed yesterday seems to be Skype which must have been an update as it's already installed.

Carole

[Carole]

Bit bothered now and in need of advice.

For some months I have been receiving E Mails from EE about my home broadband.  Well as far as I knew I do not have EE Broadband so could not understand why I was getting them.  I did not click on the link to my supposed account (in case it was a scam) but just kept them to one side on my PC.  Well today I went into Bromley to the EE shop as I could not seem to get hold of them over the phone, and they rang customer services who I spoke to.  Well what I did not notice before was was that the E Mail sent to me had a dot in between the names which my address does not.  So talking to the customer services they said it was a different Carole Pope with almost the same E mail address as my DOB and address did not match and said they would contact the other Carole Pope and that I should inform Gmail.

So I found a phone number of the internet today for Gmail and rang them.  Well I am now wondering whether that was a fake/Scam phone number because this is how to conversation went.

I told them my real E mail address and about the incorrect one being supplied to me and immediately he said (strong Indian accent) that he could see some-one was trying to access my computer from Liverpool. Wanted to know what devices I used and said my computer will be compromised as will my smartphone and that I needed to log into the following site to get extra protection.

www.globalsoftpro.com

Well at those prices I would not consider it and said that surely Gmail should be able to fix all this, but the man with the accent continued to say that I needed it and other things I could not understand.  In the end I refused and said it sounded dodgy and eventually he hung up on me because I continued to argue about it.

Now all you IT gurus, does this sound dodgy or what?

Meanwhile I have transferred all the EE Mails into the scam trashcan (all with links unopened).

Carole

[NoelC]

Was that the www.customercarenumber.uk/gmail-customer-care-uk.html number, advertising "Gmail Customer Support At UK :+44-800-404-9736" ? If so; it's a third party support company (sales company).

[MarkS]

I can't help on that particular issue.  It does sound like you will continue to get emails intended for the other Carole and the other Carole will get yours because it's all too easy for a sender to mistakenly insert or omit a dot.

I recently received a phone call from "TalkTalk Customer Support" (definitely an Indian call centre) about a problem with my computer, which they could see from their end.  They asked me if I was sitting at my computer, connected to the internet and what I could see on my screen.  I replied "PixInsight", which seemed to confuse them for a while. Anyway, I played along for a while but challenged them why Talk Talk support would phone me since my provider is BT, not TalkTalk.  They replied that they were contracted to solve problems for all internet providers.  I pretended to be satisfied with their answer and continued to play along until the phone call abruptly ended when they eventually discovered I wasn't running Windows XP.  I was quite upset because I was beginning to enjoy winding them up.

Mark

[Carole]

Was that the www.customercarenumber.uk/gmail-customer-care-uk.html number, advertising "Gmail Customer Support At UK :+44-800-404-9736" ? If so; it's a third party support company (sales company).

Hi Noel.  No the number I rang and it appears on a number of websites if you search for Gmail customer support phone number (or similar).  0800 051 3725 (then it says if you want to proceed to dial 1 (which is also odd).

Thanks for replying Mark, yes I can see that some-one ringing from out of the blue could be a scam, but I wasn't expecting to be the caller to what I thought was a genuine company and find myself caught up in a scam.

I found the Gmail customer support forum and posted up the story on there and the one reply i got was of the opinion that Gmail doesn't give 1 to 1 customer support and the only support available was via the forum I was posting on.  In their opinion it was a scam.  I must say it did strike me as surprising that this person on "supposed customer support" could see so quickly that someone was trying to access my computer from Liverpool. 

Honestly you really have to be on your guard in this day and age.  I have also found out that having a dot on not makes no difference in Gmail accounts, apparently only I can have a Gmail address with the name I have chosen whether or not there are numbers or dots in the same address apparently they will all come to me.  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en&vid=1-635755695112888555-16719080692584074874
I have been advised to try to login to google using the incorrect address and was told it would still lead me into my account.  I haven't tried this yet.

I feel slightly better knowing this was a scam and that my computer is not trying to be accessed from Liverpool, but also bothered that I was involved in a possible scam. 

Carole

[Carole]

Received an E Mail from Google regarding the discussion I posted on the Gmail forum and this was amongst the blurb:

PLEASE NOTE: Phone support is not available for free, consumer Gmail accounts. Be wary of services claiming to offer phone support. More tips for being secure on the web: https://goo.gl/HRjfNo

Also I tried logging in to my gmail using the incorrect address with a dot in it, and sure enough it led me straight into my own Gmail account.

[MarkS]

Interesting - so gmail addresses ignore dots.  I didn't know that.

Mark

[Rick]

Yeah, it's one of Gmail's weirder (occasionally useful but usually just plain confusing) features...