Pastor gives warning about email hacker

A computer hacker took advantage of a brief lapse on the part of a Cavan email user last week and nearly stole €3,000 because of it. Pastor Ivan Watson of Cavan Baptist Church is asking the public to be vigilant - his contacts received an email purporting to be from him and seeking financial help because he had been robbed in France. Pastor Watson was surprised to receive texts from friends early last Friday morning concerned about his welfare. It transpires they had received an email claiming that Ivan was in France attending a programme. During his stay, the message claimed, his money, credit cards and phone were stolen, and what he required was €3,000 to help him complete the programme and get back home. "I'm glad no one was actually duped into sending money," he said on Monday. When Ivan discovered what had happened he had difficulty getting back into his account as the hackers had changed his password and security questions. "I just couldn't send out an email quickly enough to everybody and say I'm okay." He had two other email accounts and was able to send out a general email to people who were common to both address books. "It would have upset me if some of my friends did send on money." Some of them did phone up during the day just to check out that everything was alright. One or two did half believe the email, he added. "I have no idea where this bogus email came from. I went through the process with Hotmail to try and change my password and get on to the accounts department and let them know about it." Ivan thinks they did not follow it up; nor did he report the matter to the gardaí. He admitted that part of the problem could have been his own fault. "I'm nearly sure how the break-in came about." The day before he had an email purporting to be from Hotmail stating it was going to close his account and needed to confirm his details. Ivan put his password on that and that was probably how the hackers got in. Naturally he is a bit embarrassed to be caught like that as he has always been alert when he gets similar emails from banks seeking information from him. "This one caught me unawares," he confessed. He advises everyone to be observant when they get such emails. "Contact the person or company who sent it and determine if it's genuine." Banks never seek details from clients through emails. A hacker is an individual that attempts to take control over someone else's computer by using viruses, worms, and other types of internet attacks. It is not difficult for the creator of the hacking programme to predetermine the internet addresses his programme will attack. There are also amateur hackers who use software programmes to check randomly for online computers to attack. Hackers prey on all citizens of the internet and are extremely dangerous to individuals, corporations, and governments. Hacking is now the hobby of criminals and thieves.