Today my email account was hijacked. I hope I don’t have too many angry recipients, and I hope few if any followed the probably disgusting link in the email. But I have also watched fellow authors be forced to start over on that Facebook network they worked so hard to grow. When your virtual marketing efforts are undone by a hacker/spammer/sick-o, what should you do?
Writing Tip for Today: I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why hackers ruin online platforms for honest folk. Here’s what I’m doing to undo the damage where possible and make it harder to hack me again:

• The first inkling I had was a bunch of “undeliverable” bounced emails. Since I hadn’t sent any mass mails, I was instantly suspicious.
• I contacted as many “victims” of the hack as I could. I start with a fresh message, send it from a different platform (say online instead of your email program). In my case, the hacker didn’t have much in the way of a subject, so I put something in the subject line to alert the recipient that it was really me.
• I posted online in my Yahoo groups, Facebook and Twitter that I was hacked and that anyone receiving an odd message should NOT follow the link. There’ll be some cross posting, but it’s for a good reason.
• I ran a virus check on my computer.
• Since in my case there was no infection detected, I plan to either change my email password, switch accounts or use the online platform for a while and reinstall the Outlook program.

I don’t know if I’m doing everything I can, so if you know something I don’t, please let me know! Thanks and here’s hoping your network is never invaded by these pathetic hackers.