I almost lost my sanity during the ‘end-of-the-school-year’ six weeks holidays due to thievery of all sorts by cyber criminals, who were using a malicious software called malware or so as I was told by a few geeks whom I had contacted for support. You could call it a period of constant harassment, during which, each time I reset my password it got mysteriously changed, documents downloaded or created or saved mysteriously disappeared, stumbled upon changes made to the manuscript that I had edited earlier, blocked out of my own social networking websites and features added or deleted to the websites that I own. To make matters worse, I did not know that malware had different names such as virus, worm, Trojan horse, spyware, ransomware, rootkit, RAT, backdoor etc. I shouted at my provider as I noticed that the IP address was not constant and even considered throwing my devices in anger and frustration to end the torture and stress.
To protect my manuscript and other important documents, I started saving it on a USB and when I plugged it to my laptop or PC turned the wireless off before I commenced my work. I did a factory reset on my laptop and it would seem the problem has been resolved. I could not understand how someone or something could steal the peace of my mind and agitate me to a great extent. To quote what one of the geeks told me – It is like you are giving the passwords to them.’ He would not help me reset my business email password until I got rid of the malware or some IT technicians examined my devices at home. Every one I spoke to regarding this matter did nothing other than say things that i could not agree with and they all made it to the suspicious list including Microsoft as I used Microsoft edge to browse and access all websites that i usually worked with. It was a colossal waste of time as what i could have achieved in ten minutes usually took an hour or two because of the unnecessary interference.
Eventually, towards the end of the holidays, I uploaded my manuscript on to an online selling platform, which is now available on online retailers websites, created different email accounts and connected all my email accounts to my phone so that resetting the passwords became a little less complicated. It is an ongoing battle until I purchase Malwarebytes and take other necessary measures to prevent professional hackers and cyber criminals I thought until I stumbled upon a useful video clip on YouTube which makes my ordeal less burdensome. It is not without reason they say ‘Experience is your best teacher.’
A Writer's Exposé 