I woke up on a sunny Friday morning to the sound of my phone beeping incessantly.

My Gmail account had gotten hacked.

(It was Friday the Thirteenth, so who knows… a little bad luck?!)

Over 50 (!) wonderful friends and clients reached out by text and email to let me know.

(Thank you if you were one of those people! I am truly grateful to have so many people looking out for me.) 🥰

▶️ Even if we THINK we have strong security measures in place, hacking can happen to the best of us.

So what can you do to try to prevent someone from hacking your email?

Here’s what happened…

One of my clients is a tech guy and he was thoughtful enough to send me this:

The pdf document sent out with an email from your Gmail account is a phishing attempt. It asks people to sign in using their Gmail login using a legitimate looking Google URL. But it’s NOT a real login page. They’re taking advantage of an exploit with Google’s cloud infrastructure. More here if you’re interested: https://cybersecuritynews.com/phishing-campaign-exploits-google-cloud/

And another client – a social media expert – shared this:

Always the worst! I’ve noticed an uptick of hacking incidents – both email and websites in the past 13 days since the Iran War began. Mainly websites related to churches, spiritual things, healers, veteran owned businesses and anything patriotic or related to the US/Politics. Ah, and any businesses that are for or support the LGBTQ community.

(So thoughtful of them to research what happened and let me know so I could tell you, right?)

So what can YOU do if your email gets hacked?

Here are 8 steps to take if your email gets hacked:

1. Don’t open suspicious links in emails. If you think it looks strange, email or text the person who sent it to see if it’s legit.

2. Trust your intuition. So many people texted and said: “This email doesn’t sound like you. You have such a solid brand, I can tell something is ‘off’” and “Your voice sounds different – is this really from you?” Pause and verify.

3. Change your email password immediately. Make it a “very strong” password – with lots of letters, numbers and symbols intermingled. Not a super-simple password that’s easy to remember because it’s too easy to hack. Hackers are getting smarter – make it hard for them. Use a password manager like LastPass or TrueKey to keep track of your hard-to-remember passwords. And if you use the same password for other programs, don’t forget to change it there too.

4. Warn your contacts. Immediately let people know your account was compromised so they don’t click links or respond to scam messages sent from your email. I spent 2.5 hours straight on Friday morning replying to each person who reached out to me letting them know it was a hack.

5. Use Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA). I know it can be a pain, but it adds a second layer of protection. Even if someone gets your password, they still can’t log in without a code sent to your phone or authentication app.

6. Check your account recovery settings. Hackers sometimes change the recovery email or phone number so you can’t regain access. Make sure these are correct.

7. Run a malware/virus scan on your computer. Sometimes the breach happens because malicious software captured your password.

8. Remove your data from the dark web. Data brokers are selling our personal info to vendors and on the dark web. Is it possible to have your data removed? Yes. A lot of it. A few years ago, I signed up with Delete Me to remove my info from search engines and third party sites. They remove info every 3 months and send you reports. Learn more about Delete Me here. (I’m an affiliate because I love their service.)

If this ever happens to you, take a breath, follow the steps above, and know that most issues can be resolved quickly once you act.

Technology is incredible, but it also means we have to stay more vigilant than we used to…

Speaking of staying vigilant – the same is true of protecting your brand from AI swiping it.

If you haven’t seen my recent emails or Insta posts, I’m hosting a free live master class THIS THURSDAY to help you protect your brand from AI:

Trademark Your Brand – Before AI Takes It.
Claim it. Own it. Make it legally yours.

Thursday, March 19
12 pm PT / 3 pm ET

If you haven’t yet, Grab your spot here and join me for this live Trademarking Master Class.

In this day and age, we ALL have to exercise more caution and put more protections in place to protect our privacy and work…both around email accounts AND our branding.

(I’m preaching to the choir here… It’s a reminder for me to close my security leaks too!)

Not by chance my email got hacked right before I’m teaching you about upping your legal protection, right?

✨ Timing is always divine. ✨

Can’t wait to see you for the live webinar – and be sure to tighten up your email security today!