HACKED?!? HOW TO RECOVER YOUR ACCOUNT FOR DUMMIES

MY ACCOUNT WAS HACKED LAST WEEK!!!

So, as promised here is my guide on recovering your account and, more importantly, a few tips on how to avoid getting hacked in the first place!

So, when I woke up and found out that my account had been taken hostage by a hacker! I totally panicked and didn't know what to do!

I went to look for help on both Steemit and Google searches, but I found myself bombarded by hundreds of different posts. Pages and pages of long, complicated, incomprehensible articles full of "incripted words" and impossibly intricate terms...
Very informative and comprehensive but way too much information!!

Being a 6 days young minnow, I was still trying to get my head around the difference between Steem - SteemDollars and SteemPower let alone the whole concept of decentralization, cryptocurrency or the blockchain.

OMG! My head was spinning I just wanted a quick information manual or call someone to tell me what to do!!

This was going to take hours or forever!!

I had no time to waste so I messaged every Discord chat-help even emailed Dtube and DLive help to see if I could change the password from the app as my phone was still logged in.
I went on steem.chat.com and found #help but nobody was coming back with anything yet..

While waiting for replies (I must say the quickest were @Dtube and @DLive to email me back... But unfortunately they could not help 😭🙏) I got all sorts of different information, everyone wants to help but nobody was telling me exactly what to do...

I kept going over and over in my head the 5 rules of steemit :

#1 Don't lose your password
#2 Don't lose your password
#3 Don't lose your password
and then I could no remember the other two because when I read the rules the first day, I was so panicked about losing the password, that my brain stopped registering what I was reading
so... #4...?
#5????

But hold on...
I DID NOT LOSE MY PASSWORD!!!
so I should be OK...???

Finally someone replied to one of my desperate messages "you need to recover your account"
That sounded like something really positive and indeed something I understood so I went on to steem recovery page:

You put your steemit name, the last password you used and click recover.

To my horror there is not an immediate reply to your email with a new password or a code to log in straight away... it says that your request is in process and basically you have to wait!!!

After waiting for what appeared to be an eternity, 24 hours, which is years in steem time, I realised my account was cleaned out and my reputation destroyed, I finally got the reply from Steemit saying that they couldn't help me since I didn't open the account with steemit.com

OMG!! Back to the drawing board ...

During my lengthy and frantic search through steemit posts about recovering your account and what to do when you are hacked I finally found a really useful piece that explains it all step by step and in a very simple way:

https://steemit.com/mapsters/@simplymike/got-hacked-here-s-how-to-get-your-account-and-reputation-score-back

Thank you @simplymike 👍

I found out that, since I opened my account
with anon.steem.network (to be honest I didn't have a clue, as a friend of mine opened the account for me...) I couldn't recover the account with steem recovery...
so once I knew that it was a super easy and painless process...

Here it is in a Coconut-shell

If you’ve created your account through :
A)

website:

1. go to the ‘Stolen Accounts Recovery’ link:
   https://steemit.com/recover_account_step_1
   
2. enter your account name
3. last owner password you have
4. click the ‘Begin Recovery’ button
5. insert the email address associated with your Steemit account
6. relax and wait... it can take up to 24 hours

If you’ve created your account through :
B) Blocktrades.us website:

1. send an email to Blocktrades support service: support@blocktrades.us
2. wait for a reply
3. confirm your Blocktrades email address
4. send your last steemit password
5. they will guide you through the process to recover your account

If you’ve created your account through :
C) Anonsteem website anon.steem.network
follow the guidelines for the ‘Stolen Account Recovery’ process:
https://anon.steem.network/recovery

1. send an email to: anonsteem@someguy123.com
   including:
   -Steemit name
   -Last owner password used
   -Photo of you holding a piece of paper (write: @username, Anonsteem, date) to confirm identity
   -Proof of purchase of the account (if you have it)
2. you will then receive an email with instructions for the recovery and a new password in a message that would self-destruct...

THAT IS SO MISSION IMPOSSIBLE... SO 007... SUPER COOL thank you @someguy123 😎

So that was simple enough...wasn't it?
But it took me so much time, effort and research to get to this simple information that I am now sharing it with you, little minnows and non-minnows so that you won't have to go through this nightmare at all..
Especially if you understand the following Key lessons that I have learnt :

1. Understand the password roles:
   It should be like this:
   Posting key: THIS IS YOUR PASSWORD
   Active key: THIS IS THE KEY TO YOUR SAFE only use this to authorise money transactions or steemconnet
   Owner key: EMERGENCY LIFE SEVER
   keep it safe you don't ever need it if you understood rule n. 1 and 2
   Never use your master password for daily login

2. Always check the URL address of what you are signing into with your password... (THE POSTING PASSWORD of course because after this video you won't be as silly as I was, to use the owner key...

3. Be careful to any external link that advertised in yours or other's comments:

I basically followed a link that looked like Steemauto and there was a steemconnet login box page, it even said: "created by @arcange" at the bottom... the hacker created a fake steemconnet website to login to the platform and when you put your key in he has got it...

I am still trying to recover my REPUTATION... so please UPVOTE !!!
And if you think that this blog could be useful to you or anybody else... RESTEEM!

For those of you who have not watched my previous videos on #Dtube and #Dlive:

Minnow in brutal shark attack hack!

And
Steem Wars: The return of the Coconut
https://dlive.io/video/coconut-chanel/4150afb9-99a2-11e8-9a98-0242ac110003

Images courtesy of pixabay.com