Help! Our Good Friend on STEEMIT @merej99 Has Been HACKED!!! Pls. Help / Spread Awareness! Her Acc't is Being Drained as We Speak!!
Today I received a DM from Mere urgently asking for some help.
I am glad to help her, she has done SO MUCH for so many Steemians!
TLDR
- Her account has been phished and hacked and her last post was NOT written by her, and you can see that here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@merej99/how-to-withdraw-steem-power
The attacker is powering down her account and stealing her money, which she actually NEEDS!
I have contacted @timcliff and @klye for help to get her account secured and back and I wrote this on her post today that the hacker wrote.
- I wrote this in a reply here on her post and to some whales/commenters on the thread that know her:
--
This post was NOT written by Mere. Some of us are here now, having been DM'd by her to help.
Everyone is flagging this, as her account was hacked and the person writing this is stealing her money.
The Steemit witnesses have been alerted and nice to see Mere getting some support on this everyone!!!!
It is funny that the person writing this does not even seem to know that power downs do not take take over 100 weeks anymore.
Mere has helped so many people, shame on you for hacking her, she is so nice!!!!
If anyone can help Tim and Klye start this or get this dealt with asap, everyone would really appreciate this a whole lot!
Thanks for listening, we are a community and we have made friends here!
We should be kind and help one another.
Your friend in Liberty --
Barry
@barrydutton - I'm back! I just got my account recovery info, signed in and changed all the passwords...and I stopped the power down just in time! Sooo happy and I want to thank you and everyone for NUKING that POS post.
I just replaced it with a selfie. LOL HUGS & LOVE. The real merej99
<3 Mere
What a great start to the week.
Glad this worked out.
Oh man we need to be constantly vigilant in what links we click and I hate phishing scammers who take away accounts and start powering down.
I hope that the witnesses will be able to help.
I'm back!
I'm not a programmer, dev or hacker but my best guess is it was an SQL attack. I had some accounts that weren't nearly as secure as they should have been. Once they got into my gmail account it became a game of chase. Now all of my passwords are saved offline and just about everything is secured with 2FA or SMS authentication.
Oh I am happy for you dear @merej99, THANK God it's all sorted now and you got your Account back. I think I'll just do same by that I mean saving my password offline. Take care
Definitely do that.
I've been living in paranoia since this happened.
Consider changing your Steemit password and make sure you use your posting key for every day stuff.
As for the rest of your accounts, check your network settings. Make sure you recognize all the devices. Use strong passwords and keep them on a flash drive (or two...or three).
Got that, thanks dear @merej99
Good to know that you were able to secure it again before it caused a lot of damage.
Really important to keep secure access to our mailboxes and passwords and a 2FA authentication is indeed a must!
Absolutely! Don't be an idiot like I was, okay? Do it now if you haven't done it.
OMG, you mean it was not a phishing attack, but they got your gmail account?
I'm pretty careful with email: never click a link I don't recognize; type in a link if I think it's questionable and check for the security tab, which is why I don't think it was a phishing attack. Someone decided I was an easy target - and I was. My personal email accounts didn't have 2FA or heavy-duty passwords so once they got my gmail they could sign in and see my other passwords. Then it was a race to see who could change the passwords faster.
And I blocked the IP address from my computer. I'm not sure if that's enough. I still feel dirty and contagious. Once I get my Chromebook this computer is getting a new hard drive. In the meantime, the passwords to all my accounts are saved offline. I've even encrypted the password files and saved that pass key in a different place.
The escalation seems to be working out quickly so far, it is good knowing good people who care and do their jobs.
Unlike government.
LOL
@barrydutton this is really a sad news I wish I had ideas on how to get this thing back to normal. Anyways, I hope all ends well.
Thanks very much.
Mere is the best!
All is well. Thank you @enajo
I mean... I'm a little light on the STEEM from the rotten thievery but I'm going to write that off as an expensive and very stupid mistake. Time to move forward with a sigh of relief. :)
Oh, I feel so sorry for her. I saw her last post about 104 weeks of PowerDown, and even replied that the rules had been changed long time ago... It was strange to hear such a nonsence from so experienced person and true steemian who was here since early days.
I hope her account will be restored as soon as possible.
Damn! Why they did not hack haejin or ranchorelaxo?!
I have no idea, I just know Mere asked for help and then I tried.
Bernie flagged this post hiding it completely, no idea why but he commented above.
I am restored! XOXOX
My heart was pounding so hard when I got the email notification. It feels so good.
As for the lost STEEM... it was a hard and expensive lesson but apparently one I needed to learn.
HUGS! And I replaced that last post with a selfie :D LOL
How can I help? Let me know when she's secure and I'll try to send some SBD!
Thank you @richq11.
I'm back. Just got my keys today and secured the account. No worries about sending SBD because I'd probably pay it forward anyway. I am really thankful for the sentiment. The stolen funds were earmarked STEEM to do another community challenge once I got caught up with work stuff. This has been an expensive lesson that I will carry with me for a long time. :)
Well, we all got where we are on here by somebody paying it forward. Any time I can help, you know all you have to do is ask! How did they get in? (So I don't make the same mistake)
She is planning on writing on this, she is banging away at a ton of replies in this post Rich.
Tagged you here earlier for helping on this my man.
Thanks again.
She wrote me... Thanks Brother!
Damn, mere is a really helpful person....I hope this gets resolved quickly.
All resolved!
I got the recovery email and have been posting my thanks to everyone for their help!
Happy Dance. :)
Thanks again for helping on this!!!
That really sucks. Not really sure how accounts get hacked on here when there is no password recovery. Any insight would be helpful so the rest of us can protect our accounts. Thank you for letting everyone know.
Yeah, this past week sucked BIG TIME. But I'm back. My keys are stored safely. I'm using my POSTING KEY now and all other sign in stuff is kept off line. I will probably post and share about this harrowing experience. If anything, people will learn what not to do. :)
Thank you. I I am so glad to hear that you got your account back. I will be following you. I would love to hear about your experience.
yeah write about how this all happened, i think people are curious to know if they have safe practices.
I agree, I was going to ask her to write about this also.
Thanks for your help on this @stellabelle
I was going to ask you to write about all this, pls. send me the post when you do, Mere.
A good lesson for everyone.
It's really dis hearting that some people get happy hurting others.. I hope her account is restored
She is the best!
Thanks.
Hi Barry. Terrible news. Can they stop it?
Bernie flagged my post to help Meredith and then said my msg to Beanz was why, I really do not understand the hate.
I know nothing else, I just got in the house from my rehab session.
Frick. It makes me sick to my stomach when I try and help people and no idea why Beanz would msg him etc on that.
I think a protocol needs to be put in place so everyone knows what to do for future. It can happen to anyone and we all need to protect each other. There has to be a form of protection that needs to be over seen. Wouldn't take much. For example a power down shouldn't be able to be started straight away. There has to be a delay in order to protect. No one would complain as it would be put in place to protect everyone. This would prevent the theft.
Dan Larimer aka here as @dan / @dantheman has built that into his EOS platform, man that is going to change the world.
I hope you have some EOS!!
Hi Barry. Yes. Not a lot though.
https://steemit.com/recover_account_step_1
Good link to share man, thanks --- I am so glad this worked out so quickly.