My Gmail Account was hacked by an IP pointing to China.

A couple of weeks ago, I had exactly the same issue Chris Brogan had, I tried to log into gmail account and was told it had been suspended temporarily, that I needed to verify my account, as soon as I entered the code google sent to my mobile phone, my account was released. I thought my account was now completely safe, and did not bother to change my password.

Boy, was I wrong? I just found out that my account has been tampered with by some dude, whose IP is pointing to China (may not be his or her original location). How did I know this? I simple looked at the footer of gmail account;

Clicked on details and bam! This came up;

Look closely my regular IP address is Nigeria (41.221.167.46) and I last accessed my account on the 5th of April. In the middle, is another ip address China (115.49.93.65) how did I get to China? When in fact I travelled to my home town for my GrandMa’s funeral, she passed on earlier this month (R.I.P. Mama). If you notice the IP address I am currently browsing from is completely different because it’s a cyber cafe, somewhere in Anambra state, Nigeria.

I am indeed saddened by this event and why? This guy(s) sent some poorly written scam/phishing mail to all my contacts and that is embarrassing. This is the poorly written mail sent out from my account;

Dear friend:

how are you doing Recently?i prefer to introduce a good company who trades mainly in electornic products. such as laptops,motorcycles, digital cameras, mobile phones,LCD TV, x box, PS3, GPS, MP3 / 4, etc. Now the company is under sales promotion,all the products are sold almost at its cost.They provide the best service and original products of good quality, what’s more ,the price will suprise you! It is realy a good chance for shopping.just grasp the opportunity, contact them as soon as possible! www.eoapo.com

I could not have written this, as a professional marketer I know too well that the above words can only get a fool to buy from me. I have reported the issue to Google and I hope they note this site that is spamming people all over the world.

I want to use this opportunity to inform everyone on my contact who gets to read this post, that I did not send that mail and I ll never send out such mails, considering my brand and person.

Please if you use gmail, change your password(s) immediately. I have changed mine and this time I mixed it properly with words, numbers and symbols, here is a sample; 5FLsivtrHng*3HiEedl – I hope this makes my gmail account that was hacked safe for a while?

Finally, form the habit of changing our passwords frequently.

Just in case you got the above email from me, please disregard it because my gmail account was hacked.