My Profile

White Hat hacker?

https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/white-hat-hackers

BarbB and others: when my SIL worked in as the VP of Credit (cards) in a large Credit Union she told me our info has already been sold 10 times over already. This was 10 years ago. As long as we have an internet that centralizes information, this will continue to be the case. This is why block chain technology is more secure, because it decentralizes info so that you have more control over your own and who gets to see it/use it.

Not sure what info from *this site* people are worried about exposing? Birth dates? Age, gender, address, mobile number? This isn't a commerce site, so there's no cc or ssn info. Not much here worth stealing IMO. I'm personally not worried about this issue.

Stacy122, it was only for the definition of White Hat.

How's this instead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)

WHOEVER our hacker is, he or she isn't in a white hat, trust me. This is some minor league troublemaker who wants and who loves drama and chaos. If it is the admins I will EAT my hat, white or otherwise! And likely leave the page the same moment. This is someone changing the words of our posters, and playing. That's what they like, to play with people's minds. It's their form of entertainment.
Awaiting the admins attention tomorrow, and hope that they will weigh in at least to tell everyone that it is not THEM posting the snide little nonsense.
Meanwhile, hopefully back to our OPs in the a.m., what this page is supposed to be about.
BARB, don't LEAVE. Or leave only until the page is fixed. Or take a vacation from it. Again, you are not expendible here.

I 100 per cent second Golden's comments. Barb, don't leave. Or anyone else who is considering leaving. We all need each other.

I don't believe there's some big conspiracy on here. In fact this so called hacking problem seemed to have all started when a certain poster (who I won't name) you all probably can guess who I'm talking about, started planting this notion in our heads.

Relax everybody. Things will get sorted out.

Bandy, why would you think it was you I was talking about? It could be anybody I was referring to.

I'm not going to say who I meant cause I don't want to cast aspersions on anyone. Whoever it is knows who they are and they should stop it right now so we can all get on with it

3/6/23 - Still cannot get into my Profile.

This seems to be the only remaining issue, no more auto logouts.

Just went thru the posts and the "hackers" 4 posts are still up. I am EST so not sure what time zone this site is in. Would be nice if Administrator would at least tell us they r aware of the problem.

I agree JoAnn.
I hope the admins show up today to tell us what is happening. The Happy-Hacker is still there with all her/his posts to us. And we have heard nothing. All the folks who have no profile are still without a profile. People are saying they will leave, and they are long time members.
I hope that someone will at least speak to us to acknowledge our concerns and reassure us that something is being done.

Hi all,
 
We are aware of the suspicious activity that transpired over the weekend, and we're looking into it. The original posts have been kept active for now so our team has everything needed to investigate the matter.
 
The profile page bug is still on our radar as well and should be resolved soon.
 
I'll share any updates here as I receive them. Again, thank you all for your patience and for providing such detailed information about the issues you've been experiencing on the site.

AgingCare,
Thanks very much for the update. Glad to know you are aware of the hacker, and are investigating.
Would really help us if you DO respond and update us while all this is going on. We all were wondering why, over all this time, the profiles of some people are fixed so readily and others go on and on. We appreciate the update so much. I hope that we can look for updates on THIS PARTICULAR thread. Having "one place" makes it easier.
Personal opinion is that this is a simple amateurish troublemaker who loves chaos. Hope you get her/him.
And hope Geaton's, Freqflyer's, Barb's and any other profiles are still up again.

Stacy, you seem increasingly more unhappy with AC pages. Sometimes we just need a vacation from it. You might consider taking some time off from it if you are not enjoying it; that sure helped ME when I got myself all unhappy.
I don't see you up on the top answering a lot of our OP's questions anymore. Maybe dive into helping others would be a thing to try.
The Admins say they are leaving up the nonsense so they can continue to investigate it. I suggest we might give them a chance. But those of us who don't wish to give them a chance certainly don't need to stay.
As to eye openers? I have had a few too many for a while. I don't think I will be seeking out more, hee hee.
Take care, woman.

I no longer give out my email to anyone that I don’t know. I only gave it to a couple of people on this site when they asked for it.

I am not accusing anyone on this forum. It’s just that I am very leery of giving out my email address after being a victim of identity theft.

The police do not tell the identity theft victims the names of the suspects.

The detective told me that identity theft is a very common occurrence and that it can happen to anyone.

I have always been very careful. I don’t click on links. I don’t open any emails from people that I don’t know. I have always automatically deleted junk mail and text. I only order items online from reputable sellers.

Awhile back my email was hacked and someone took out a loan in my name. They had everything, my social security number, phone number and address, etc.

Sadly, some people make their living by becoming a thief.

I saw a notification about a credit score change. Sure enough, when I checked on it, I discovered that someone had taken out a loan in my name.

I saw that I was being notified of missed payments. It’s an awful feeling. I felt horribly violated.

Please check your credit report regularly. We cannot take anything for granted these days.

It’s a mess to straighten out identity theft. I had to file a police report. It takes awhile for the police to sort it out. The detective that worked my case said that his desk is filled with identity fraud reports.

I put a freeze with all three credit bureaus. I also called the financial institution that gave this person the loan. They assured me that they took identity theft seriously and that they would work with the police to resolve the issue.

Need, putting a freeze on all credit with the three companies is SUCH a good idea. Used to be you could only do this in a few states. Now I think you can everywhere. If you apply for new credit you will have to temporarily unfreeze, but you are given a code to do this. It is such a wise thing to do because then if someone DOES manage to steal your information they cannot open new accounts in your name or do much else. Also, as you said, such a good idea not to open links, and to check your credit reports.

Yes, Alva

This is true. I will have to unfreeze it if I need to. I feel better now with having it frozen for now.

I felt so violated that I was going to do whatever I had to do in order to protect myself from identity theft again.

My brother was selling his large home in D. C. due to health issues that he has. He decided to live in a small condominium.

He had a buyer shortly after listing his house. The deal fell through because the potential buyer discovered that she was a victim of identity theft.

The woman was extremely busy, a prominent doctor who hadn’t checked her credit report in quite some time. So, she couldn’t purchase my brother’s home. He sold it to someone else.

Identity theft can wreck our lives. We can’t become lapsed with tracking our financial records and think that we aren’t vulnerable. Everyone is susceptible to becoming a target.

Need - I am so sorry you went through that. Even being extra careful sometimes bad things can happen.

3/7/23 - Still cannot get into my Profile.

Regarding giving out email addresses:

I have had 3 email addresses for years: my real, personal one that I only give out to friends, relatives, and any person or organization that I really trust.

One is my business email, so I can keep my personal life separate from my work life.

One is my decoy, that I give out to vendors or anyone else who isn't close to me. The decoy box fills up daily with spam and junk so I can easily mass delete most of what's in it. I can easily check all 3 emails on my devices. If I get an email in my decoy box that I want to keep, I simply move it to my personal inbox.

Finally, change your passwords frequently, and make sure they are strong.

I wonder if we can come up with a full list here of those with profile problems. They are the only problems still extant with the exception of some nasty little gnat of a hacker. So there is 1) Geaton 2) Barb 3) Freqflyer. Is that currently it? I know JoAnn WAS a victim but I think that hers is fixed.
QUESTION ADMINS: Should those affected perhaps try to close down, and then create an entirely new account>
Would that work?

Bandy,

I specifically said that I was not accusing anyone on this forum for my identity theft issue. I said that I no longer give out my email to anyone due to having it hacked.

Nothing is truly safe online. I am never surprised at anything that happens. These things happen all the time in a modern world.

Thanks, Golden

You’re right. Even if someone is cautious it can still happen. The detective who worked my case said that he has several officers who work on fraud cases all day long.

Geaton,

Many of us have more than one email. It is convenient as far as junk mail goes. Any of the emails can get hacked though to use in fraudulent transactions.

We should change our passwords on a regular basis also.

It’s crazy how many identity thefts happen. These hackers are professional thieves.

We must do everything that we can to protect ourselves and keep a close eye on our financial records because there will always be hackers in this world.

What is truly sad is that many fraudulent loans are due to the ‘overnight’ loans that are being made. That is what happened in my case.

I am lucky because it was a relatively small amount compared to other cases of more serious cases of identity theft. The amount was $4,000. Still, I had to resolve the issue and get the loan taken off of my account.

These are people who never meet with anyone in person. It’s all done online.

Although reading the profile of a new poster can be helpful I very seldom visit my own profile page and probably wouldn't even notice if it went down, AFAIK the loss would only affect my ability to receive personal and private messages.... but maybe you all are PMing each other a lot?

Thanks, Bandy for empathizing with me.

It surely would be nice if we could depend on everything online to be secure. Unfortunately, that will never be the case. We always have to be vigilant about checking our records.

Now I am paranoid about posting responses especially when the username looks suspicious, to say nothing of the situation!

https://www.agingcare.com/questions/am-i-free-to-leave-after-my-8-hrs-of-work-is-complete-as-a-live-in-caregiver-480076.htm?orderby=oldest

Glad - I see user names like that as coming from someone who has embraced the need for stronger passwords not as something sinister. The forum has gotten much better at fending off attacks from obvious trolls who are just out to cause mayhem, newer members probably do not even know about the bad old days.

3/8/23 - Still cannot get into my Profile, even after logging out and then back in.

My 1Password app alerts me to which (popular) websites have been compromised, which ones are unsecured, how often I've reused the same password, if my pw is vulnerable or weak.

If you think about how much time and money we spend on protecting ourselves from thieves in all realms, it is truly incredible. From the locks on our houses and cars, to the PITA 2-factor authentication, fingerprint or facial IDs on devices, sudden credit card shutdowns, and just time spent fretting about and correcting these things... what would life be like without any of this?

Just checked my profile.... it's back on .... it probably needed a well deserve vacation after all these years :)

Mine is still down. It may have flow the coop.

Another LONG TIME regular is not even bothering right now as she is suffering from what happened to me and to Bandy--that being the inability to post. Makes a post and it as quickly disappears. Will post who it is if she gives me permission. But there sure are a lot of problems. For myself, I am struck by CWillie's post as to not even caring if her profile is down because she doesn't even go to it. I have been in my profile and in discussions more due to checking in on Lea several times daily, but I do take CWillie's post to heart.

I have my news feed bookmarked as my log in page... is the news feed affected by this glitch too?
I access the other stuff if needed through the menu that drops down when I click my avatar. I haven't changed my settings or played around with my avatar for a long time.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing, I mean the menu from the avatar on the AgingCare banner that's available on the top of every page....

Yes, CWillie, the entire profile is down for them, and when accessing profile, any of it, they get a picture of a waving kitten that says "Whoops, we are working on this". Geaton says she is up and running today. Frequent flyer is not up. JoAnn's problem with this was fixed some days ago. So I think that only Freqflyer and Barb still have the WHOOPS KITTEN PROBLEM.
But there is another problem. I had it. Bandy had it. And now a well known frequent-poster here let me know SHE has it. It is a problem when you try to like something, or post something, and for a second it shows it as posted, then is is gone, poof. They fixed me and Bandy with this in a day, but don't know if our other member even reported it. I am asking her permission to let you know who she is.
So THEN problem number three is we have our amateur hacker. Who is being investigated by the site itself.
It just must be the month for it???