how not to become the next hacker victim

[acari]

I meant to post this last week, but then my LAN quit on me.

I don't know if you noticed the increase in hacked LJs. Latest hacking examples: copperbadge, dorkorific and through her shoebox_project, zarah5 and through her contrelamontre and orlandoslash (see airgiodslv's post and penknife's post).

If you clicked on links in any strange or unusual posts in any of those communities lately, especially if some new mod you've never

Comments

[impasto]

As always, you are a beacon of light in my very untechy brain! Thank you so much for compiling all this info. I feel a bit safer now knowing that I already had a security question set up, but as soon as I get home I will also try to get control over my old Hotmail account again, and back up all my journals.

*mwah!*

[acari]

Glad to be of service. LJarchive is very easy to use and even saves comments. You can also backup communities you are a member of, though without comments.

[zarah5]

This? Is a pretty awesome summary. Unfortunately it's both to late for me, and since the hackers have control over my first e-mail address ever and I never made any payments to LJ... Well. Pretty much a lost cause.

Hi, honey, you don't mind if I link to this in some upcoming post, right? &hearts

[acari]

I meant to post this before my net connection gave out and then when I saw Jen's post was all "damnit damnit damnit too late".

There is no chance to recover your journal? Damn, that sucks. I told Jen (since I couldn't find your email address anymore) I had a couple of your old entries saved. It's mostly meta and fic with a few random things thrown in. They are yours if you want them.

And link away. It's meant to be read.

[anatsuno]

*keeps post preciously*

Thanks to you I checked on the status of my secret question - had it set already :D - and I found out that the email I used to sign up is still under my control! Wish I could delete it from the list, but still. Good to know.

[acari]

See, I didn't even know about the secret question.

This post is selfish to a large degree. I am kinda wondering when they start targeting newsletters, which would put then me on the at-risk list twice.

[park_hye_in]

thanks for these links!

[azurelunatic]

I hear via announcements to the Support volunteer community that LJ is aware of the vulnerability that a first-validated email address not within your control causes, and is working on a tool that would be able to remove such addresses. However, I do not have a timeframe on when this would be available, and I do not know if one has been given to people above me, although I suspect not.

Make sure that your email addresses do not have vulnerable security questions. Notably, any question/answer pair that you've ever used in a meme should never ever be a security question/answer for anything you own.

Edit: support-related userpic selection fail.

[acari]

Thanks for the info about the future tool. I'll put it in the post.