The first call came at 7 a.m. from a friend who happens to be a Milwaukee television news anchor.
“Steve, are you OK? I received an e-mail saying something terrible has happened to you?”
Confused, the best I could mutter was, “Wha?”
My friend then explained that he had received an e-mail that appeared to be from me. On the subject line of the e-mail was the phrase “My Predicament.”
The e-mail contained the following message: “I’m writing with tears in my eyes,my family and I came down here to cardiff-wales(UK) for a short vacation unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel we stayed,all cash credit cards and cell were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us, My wife was traumatized at these incident and she’s was trying to protect me and he’s currently at the hospital recieving treatment. I have been to the embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping issues at all and our flight leaves pretty soon from now but we’re having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won’t let us leave until we settle the bills. I need your help financially to settle the bills then head straight to the airport. Please be so kind to reply back so I can tell you what to do and how to get some cash to us, also i need you to check you mail from time to time today as its the only way i can reach you. I’m under pressure at the moment. Steve”
Of course, this was a hoax, although here’s the eerie thing. My wife and I really WERE out of the country that day, as I was attending a professional conference. That fact made it even more disturbing when the hoax e-mail with my name on it was received by one of my brothers and my sister. At that moment, I was grateful that my mother had not received it.
As best I can tell, here is what happened. Someone or something hacked into my old MSN e-mail account, gleaned all of the e-mail addresses it could find on my computer and automatically sent out the hoax e-mail in my name. And even more devious, the program then changed the password on my MSN account, so I can’t even go to MSN and change it to prevent something like that from happening again. The hotel’s technical support staff tried to tell me it was a breach of MSN’s security, not the hotel’s Internet provider. I don’t think so. I haven’t used that e-mail address in 10 years, and I never sent e-mails to the people who received the hoax mails through MSN.
Their e-mail addresses were not stored or referenced in the MSN account.
However, getting a live person at MSN to take corrective action for this situation is proving to be a futile mission. (Does anybody out there have Bill Gates’ cell phone number?)
I was flooded by e-mails from friends and business acquaintances, who either were concerned for me or wanted merely to let me know I had been hacked. Some readers even called our office to inquire about my welfare.Others said they knew it wasn’t from me because some words were misspelled. (I’ll take that as a compliment.)
Let me assure you folks, my wife and I indeed are just fine and we’ve returned to American soil. But here’s a lesson learned: If you have a dormant old MSN e-mail account, shut it down now. And if you are ever mugged in the U.K. and really need help, well, good luck to you. Because I won’t believe it.
Steve Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.
