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Several weeks ago one of the websites I use for promotion informed its clients that an older area of the site had been hacked. ÌýThe hackers had posted several hundred email address and password combos from this site as well as quite a few others. ÌýI immediately went searching all over the internet for places this email address had been used in combination with this particular password. ÌýI found none, but I changed passwords on any potentially vulnerable accounts just in case.


There was nothing I could do about the places I had bought electronic books online using this particular combo that have since gone out of business. ÌýWell, as near as I can figure...one of those sites has come back to bite me in the butt.


My bank noticed the fraudulent use of my credit card right away and contacted me. ÌýSomeone had set up an account with Yahoo and Match.com with my info. ÌýCan you imagine? ÌýA dating service. ÌýMe! ÌýRight, 'cuz Hubcap isn't enough for any one woman to handle. ÌýAnyway, those sneaky peets followed up their fraudulent use of my card and attempt to create a different me online with an email to my legit account telling me about it (purporting to be from my bank) and saying all assets were frozen until I signed in (on the link provided of course). ÌýNow, I'd just been in my account to go over the fraudulent charges with my bank, so I knew that claim to be false.


The email looked very legit though. ÌýI've gotten so many non-legit ones, I know the signs to look for...misspelled words, odd phrasing, etc. ÌýThis email had none of them. ÌýHowever, I have a policy of NEVER signing into money related accounts through an email link. ÌýI always go to the home webpage and sign in from there when in question. ÌýGood thing too...as these emails were clearly phishing emails.


I'm really grateful my bank caught onto the fraudulent charges early, but let me tell you...for a lot of people, those charges would not have raised a red flag. ÌýBut I don't Skype, I don't use dating services (even the really good ones LOL) and I pay for things like Yahoo Mail with a separate credit card I *don't* use to pay for anything else and is not linked to my bank account. ÌýAnd still, I feel like there's a whole passel of security measures that are going to be going into place in the next days and weeks.


I figure we can help each other out with that, right? ÌýWhat things to do you do to protect your identity in this world of online shopping, banking and book buying?Ìý