Back from "Madrid, Spain"

Hello, I'm back from my mythical trip to Madrid - thanks to everyone who phoned or emailed or wondered if it could be true...

After setting up another gmail account, I'm back with access to the old one - it's the one connected with the blogs - and found it had been stripped of old emails, which is A Good Thing Really, and something I was planning to get around to, someday. (No cloud without a silver lining?) Now of course I'll be trying to keep it that way!

It was stripped of its contact list too, and given the complicated form you have to fill out to report that you can't access your email account, I was leary about having to contact google again. Fortunately with gmail you can restore the contact list easily - when you go to Contacts you click on More Actions and there's an option to Restore - and you can choose how long ago you want, a day or a week or 30 days ago.

I am appalled to think that 1713 people on my list got that email. I do very much hope it was just a one-off spam, and that a complete change of identity won't be necessary...

A friend mentioned that if I'd ever emailed my bank account number or sort code to anyone, I should contact the bank and let them know. The bank said that all anyone could do with that information would be to set up standing orders or direct debits, and they'd flag my account to watch out for that kind of activity.

Rather than induce paranoia with all this information, I'm hoping that it will help people to be on the alert, and to know what to do if something similar should (heavens forfend!) happen to them.

Some simple and sensible things -

1. Keep your virus protection up to date.

2. Don't give out personal information online.

3. Back up your files regularly.

4. Keep a copy of your contact list on your PC.

5. If something says "Click Me" - don't do it!