Hacking proves a blessing in disguise for Bangkok entreprenuer

Nov. 17, 2010 - PRLog -- Late in October,  
"Just before Halloween" laments Net Media Thailand's owner Alan Johnston
A hacker, and Mr. Johnston has a reasonably good idea who it was, gained control of his online life and threatened to sell back over 30 websites Mr. Johnston had worked very hard for  over 6 months.
"They initially got my email passwords from, we believe, a key locker Trojan, which can already be present on anyone computer they ride on the back of Innocent newsletters, videos from innocent people, that you open anytime, and enter your computer, the hacker can see if these Trojans are visible and then can see every password you have saved on your computer as easy as A.B.C.." Mr. Johnston informed us.

"Then Facebook was next, with over 4,800 friends I was initially distraught and then my website hosting account, then the hacker came to me from my own Facbook account to gloat and offer to sell back by websites, I told them to go to hell" Continued Mr. Johnston.
“Then I set about getting everything back first and thank God to Yahoo for their secret questions. Once I answered that, I got my Yahoo back, and then my Facebook.

My domain hosting account, were next and after emailing many forms of ID only I would have, they gave me a new password, and even though the hacker told me they moved all my domains it was just a tactic, eventually I took control of everything and was lucky to have only lost a week of work. I was distraught throughout the whole process I am sure my hacker would be glad to know.

It is apparent now the hacker just wanted to fire a shot across my bough, this is the M.O. of a disgruntled person, someone from my past who I had a non legal disagreement with and I had no hard feelings, but they did.
I have since turned this into one of my most successful blogs revealing the conversation with my hacker word for word at http://internetmediathailand.com/?p=123

My visit to the technology Crime suppression unit at Cheang wattana Police H.Q. was an eye opening experience also. They have a large division of people, and are very helpful and take hacking and extortion very seriously indeed. I was referred to the top people.

I found it interesting to see many people in this unit playing on Facebook and some even gambling to catch up with illegal activities online, I am told they have befriended all the suspects I put to them, and are engaging in social media activities as I write, these persons are covert police on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, so they are everywhere.

My lessons were learned, and you should never store your passwords on your PC/Notebook, have different passwords for all your accounts, and update your anti virus regularly and check and delete Trojans!

But the publicity from this has had a different kind of affect the hacker wanted, my website hits went up and my blog has seen unprecedented hits and I am glad I have learned this security lesson now ,and not later on”

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