The horrifying ordeal of getting hacked and the costly exhaustion of the aftermath

It's always fucking something, right? From sex and family drama to work woes and hangovers, what’s on your mind this morning?

“The Lone Yellow” Photo by JBS

1. This past Tuesday I was editing page 149 of my recent manuscript on Word, catching up on correspondence with Gmail, and reading about independent women-forward publishing companies that survived the pandemic through Chrome. All of a sudden, my screen goes blue with all these words from “Microsoft” and a voice blaring out my speakers saying over and over again, “Your computer has been compromised. Do not shut your device down.” I cannot get rid of any of the pop-ups coming up. What the fuck do you do?

2. The next thing I know someone else is controlling my mouse and all these random scans are being done on my screen. My husband came out for his lunch break and was very alarmed. (Not just by the screen, but seeing me totally having a panic attack.) He immediately slammed down the laptop screen and took out the battery while I was frantically calling our local bank to cancel all of our accounts. This is the first of many things you must do when you get hacked. Then you get your computer cleansed at your local and trustworthy computer shop.

3. It’s Saturday. Mr. Snugs and I have successfully retrieved our identities, but not easily, and it’s not totally done. It took sleepless nights to contact every credit company, change every password. I feel fucking violated. And I don’t know what caused this to happen, but recalling what I was doing at the time, it does feel as a woman that I am under attack. I hope this not to be the case, but…