Confusion Reigns Supreme

Sometime in November I was hacked.

Someone, I don’t know who, and I quite honestly don’t care, managed to get hold of my Micro$oft account details and had the temerity to email me – posing as me – to extort an amount of money from me.

If I didn’t comply with this petty e-mobster they would plant something objectionable on my OneDrive.

I didn’t send them their £500 worth of Bitcoins. They did their worst.

The MS response was swift and could have been devastating. My account was suspended unless I put in an appeal.

Who knew you couldn’t appeal through their system if you are using a phone or tablet?

Fortunately I’ve had back-up email accounts for years just in case of this sort of thing, but if I hadn’t…

…well, I’d just have to set some up wouldn’t I?

Anyway, that’s the main reason why I wanted to get myself a new laptop to replace the old one that had finally given up the ghost before Christmas.

The first thing on my mind after setting it up was to get onto Micro$oft and appeal their decision.

I sent in an appeal along the lines of “I was hacked by a third party who placed objectionable material on my OneDrive. I’d like my account back, please, so that I can review my security measures.”

I was expecting a long wait, or a missive in return saying in effect “No, we don’t believe you.”

Yesterday, without fanfare, or even any notification, I accessed my emails for the first time since November. I’m back up and running. My OneDrive has come out of this ordeal unscathed as well, so that’s good. I could probably back that lot up into my new cloud storage and then wipe the lot clean, but I’ll think about that some time in the future. Possibly when I approach OneDrive’s limit…

I’ve dealt with some of the more urgent emails and I’m now going through the more routine ones. 2300 or so to go.

I may be gone for some time…