Every morning I wake up to a bunch of emails letting my know my various accounts have been suspended. All fake of course and containing a nefarious link designed to scam people. This morning was a little different.
I received all my emails from my main account, but then my Gmail account wasn't working and I couldn't seem to get it to work on the mobile. Weird I thought, but with technology not unexpected. I went to one of my Google services and got the following message.
Now again that's not unusual. I accept online services are constantly targets for hackers and minimise my exposure with online services as a result. If anything I have online is lost it will just be a nuisance. With email it would probably be annoying, but other than than, not business critical. All information I consider important is backed up offline. So I provided the code and was able to get into the Google service.
Now my Gmail on my mobile wasn't working so I decided to again use the notebook. There was a message for the Google Blogger team.
Hello, Your blog at http://justlocal3107.blogspot.
That's a little annoying I thought. They've deleted the blog. No way to contact them. Just gone. Hmmmm. Didn't think they'd do that. That's an unexpected exposure. Now whilst I'd planned that should I lose all the information in the blog it wasn't much of a concern since it is largely local news items, but to lose that blog as well. Hmmm. Have to think about that one. I decided I'd take a backup copy of the data in the other blogs I run. Some articles may be useful. Apart from generating traffic and sharing information publicly, I find minimal return for my efforts through blogging. Yes I get a huge amount of traffic at times, but most people on the internet want freebies, so traffic rarely converts to ta return. Even if all the blogs disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't be a major concern.
However for some their Blogger blogs is their livelihood. To have Google simply delete a blog and not suspect it, or provide a method of communication to rectify a situation, well that's the risk of using Google's free services. Google, Microsoft will drop services being used by tens of millions of people without a second thought. What happens to one person is irrelevant.
As best as I can tell, the reason the blog probably was deleted was I use the facility which enables me to send posts from my email and they'll appear in the blog. All that is protecting the blog is a password which is part of the email address. This is standard. If the password is hacked then others can post to the blog. I suspect someone managed to hack the password. Nearly everyone using an online service is now usually only protected by a password. The username is often known since many online services uses their email address. In this case people who know how Blogger is set up know there's only a password to work out. Spam starts to appear, Google flags unusual activity. Instead of suspending they simply delete the blog. Game over.
So if you have any type of online presence, do seriously think about your business exposure. Your online presence is being attacked constantly and you will be totally unaware as you can't see that activity. It is only when something succeeds will you find yourself finding you're faced with an issue.
Gmail, Microsoft's online mail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox and all the other online services expose you and your business directly to the most active and fraudulent sector in our community. Review your exposure and make sure you have a plan in case something goes wrong.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for IT support.
I received all my emails from my main account, but then my Gmail account wasn't working and I couldn't seem to get it to work on the mobile. Weird I thought, but with technology not unexpected. I went to one of my Google services and got the following message.
Now again that's not unusual. I accept online services are constantly targets for hackers and minimise my exposure with online services as a result. If anything I have online is lost it will just be a nuisance. With email it would probably be annoying, but other than than, not business critical. All information I consider important is backed up offline. So I provided the code and was able to get into the Google service.
Now my Gmail on my mobile wasn't working so I decided to again use the notebook. There was a message for the Google Blogger team.
Hello, Your blog at http://justlocal3107.blogspot.
That's a little annoying I thought. They've deleted the blog. No way to contact them. Just gone. Hmmmm. Didn't think they'd do that. That's an unexpected exposure. Now whilst I'd planned that should I lose all the information in the blog it wasn't much of a concern since it is largely local news items, but to lose that blog as well. Hmmm. Have to think about that one. I decided I'd take a backup copy of the data in the other blogs I run. Some articles may be useful. Apart from generating traffic and sharing information publicly, I find minimal return for my efforts through blogging. Yes I get a huge amount of traffic at times, but most people on the internet want freebies, so traffic rarely converts to ta return. Even if all the blogs disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't be a major concern.
However for some their Blogger blogs is their livelihood. To have Google simply delete a blog and not suspect it, or provide a method of communication to rectify a situation, well that's the risk of using Google's free services. Google, Microsoft will drop services being used by tens of millions of people without a second thought. What happens to one person is irrelevant.
As best as I can tell, the reason the blog probably was deleted was I use the facility which enables me to send posts from my email and they'll appear in the blog. All that is protecting the blog is a password which is part of the email address. This is standard. If the password is hacked then others can post to the blog. I suspect someone managed to hack the password. Nearly everyone using an online service is now usually only protected by a password. The username is often known since many online services uses their email address. In this case people who know how Blogger is set up know there's only a password to work out. Spam starts to appear, Google flags unusual activity. Instead of suspending they simply delete the blog. Game over.
So if you have any type of online presence, do seriously think about your business exposure. Your online presence is being attacked constantly and you will be totally unaware as you can't see that activity. It is only when something succeeds will you find yourself finding you're faced with an issue.
Gmail, Microsoft's online mail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox and all the other online services expose you and your business directly to the most active and fraudulent sector in our community. Review your exposure and make sure you have a plan in case something goes wrong.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for IT support.
The plot thickens as the say. It appears that I jumped the gun and assumed the suspicious behaviour and the delete of my blog were connected. I get a feeling they may have been separate events and it was simply a coincidence they both occurred today.
ReplyDeleteI decided to see if it was possible to see if I could contact someone regarding the blog. It simply doesn't make sense they'd delete a blog and that's that. Pretty unprofessional.
I noticed I had a new entry at the left when I went into Blogger which let me know there was one deleted blog. I clicked on the link. There was an option to have the blog restored. Now I know I'd been hit by a false positive with their automated processes. I submitted the restore required and I'm advised it will take 3-5 days for the request to be reviewed and the blog restored.
As they say, these things happen with computers.
About 8 hours ago I received an email letting me know my blog had been reinstated and apologising for any inconvenience.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand I'm pleased the issue has been resolved and it didn't require much effort. On the other I'm annoyed it happened in the first place. Sorry we shafted you but it's all good now just doesn't seem like an appropriate way to do things.
Perhaps for me this is the nudge I need to consider alternative approaches to achieve the outcome I want. Time to ponder without overreacting.