Twice a week, our CEO and resident money guru Jean Chatzky tackles your burning questions in the HerMoney newsletter. We’ve pulled some of the best to feature on our website — and this one made the cut! Got a question for Jean? Send it her way right here.
Q: Today’s question comes from Valerie. She writes: “I recently had my contacts hit with a fake Evite ‘from’ me – turns out my account (or email) had been compromised. I’ve alerted Evite, but what else should I do to protect myself and clean this up?”
A: Oof. At least one HerMoney staffer had one of these land in her inbox – an invite to a baby shower for a person she worked with 10+ years ago. Sadly, these phishing scams, which prey on our desire to be social, have become more common lately.
To protect yourself, I’d start with your email. Change your password and turn on two-factor authentication. Then, check any “connected apps” or “third-party access” settings and revoke anything unfamiliar (this is a common way accounts get reused for spam without a full password breach).
Then, check your mail forwarding and filter rules, as scammers sometimes set up auto-forwarding or delete rules to keep tabs on your inbox, so remove anything you didn’t create yourself. Review your recent login activity or active sessions (you’ll find this under your security settings) and log out of anything you don’t recognize. Then, do the same password refresh on your Evite account.
Since you’ve already alerted Evite, you’ll next want to give your contacts a quick heads up – a text, social post, whatever is fastest and can reach the most people, so they know not to click anything from that invite.
Lastly, it’s a good idea to set up a credit freeze. If you’re not sure how much personal information has been exposed, this is a smart precaution that costs nothing and takes just a few minutes.
On the flip side, if you’re reading this and received one of these fake evites, here’s what to do. If you haven’t run into this scam yet, get ahead of it by knowing what to keep an eye out for.
MORE ON HERMONEY:
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