Foolishly I thought it would never happen to me because I was careful.
Now that it has happened and been corrected, I see the yawning holes I left wide open for hackers. I hope that with the application of money and effort, I’m not so defenseless.
For the technology-minded among us the virus was blackhat SEO 1720. I had Norton Utilities which again, foolishly, I thought was the premium virus protection package. Norton said everything was fine.
I’d asked our local guru to update my SEO optimization who encountered red flags with AVG. The virus was apparent to AVG not Norton. He must have tinkered with it a bit because suddenly I began getting a stream of notifications saying that comments had been made to past blogs. Comments about shoe sales, Viagra, Cialis–you can imagine the rest. Visitors to my site where being linked to sites where these were being sold. Quite a surprise.
He was blocked from making changes.
I then turned to my website designer who has been a technological treasure to me over the years. He has guided me away from the precipice on many an occasion, and done more than his share of hand-holding.
It is fixed but I have lost trust. I write noir police procedurals and have poked my nose down many a rat hole doing research, so I abandoned faith in the human condition long ago. Where there is an opportunity predators will strike. And I am not immune.
I suppose none of us are.