Hackers and Spammers

Imagine my surprise last weekend when, while away in New Hampshire, I checked my mobile email and discovered that an unauthorized spam message was sent to everyone on my contacts listfrom my personal address! The email contained nothing in the subject line and only a link in the message area sending people to ads for Viagra and the like. I recognized it as something that had been forwarded earlier to me by an advertising client. His email account had obviously been hacked, perhaps when he clicked on the link. I don't remember opening it, but that must have been how I became the next victim in this vicious cycle. Two things really bothered me about this. For one thing, it feels like such a personal violation to have some lowly excuse for a human being hack into my email and send junk with my name on it to people who trust me. Secondly, even if the spam recipients realize I - and potentially they - were hacked by nasty people we don't know, I would feel awful at causing others any harm or inconvenience. We have the voicemail hacking scandal in Britain involving News Corporation and the online anarchy carried out by WikiLeaks supporters called "Anonymous." Now, my own involuntary exposure to internet vandals really drove home the need to be vigilant.