Cyber War

     One morning, I debated with myself whether or not to stay home from work, since there was a report of an impending hurricane. With uneasiness, I went to work and planned to monitor the weather closely.
     Mid morning, I received three emails from my one email account, that my password and security questions had changed. The address of the service provider did not look legitimate to me and I ignored the messages, considering them to be scams or a “phishing” attempt.
     Soon after, I received an email from my brother, warning me that he had just received an email, purporting to be from me and with my email address, which reported that I was in Wales with my family and we were in trouble and in need of “financial” help. My brother wrote, “Your email has be hacked. You need to do something to shut your account done.”
     Then one of my children, called me, interruping his vacation in Colorado, with the same warning. “you better log into your email account right now,” he urged. Despite my growing nervousness, he walked me through the steps of navigating the administrative pages of the email account. The hacker had changed my password, and in order to get back into my account, I needed to answer two security questions, which I had previously set up, when the account was opened. One question was easily answered, which made me breathe a sigh of relief, that the hacker had not altered the security questions. However, the second question did not accept my answer. “Oh, no!” I fretted, frightened that the hacker had compromised the security question. I kept trying all possibilities for the correct answer, as if I stood before a magic door, trying to remember the secret command to open the door. Then, voila! I stumbled upon the right answer, a variation of the correct answer and the magic door opened! My account was mine—regained, and yet I did not know how to remove the hacker from possession of the account. My son helped me remotely to navigate this page, delete the intruder's name and restore the correct name. Then the ownership of the account was restored!
     We then turned our attention to the emails, that had been sent out by the usurper of the email account. There were two scam emails, sent as “blind” copies to 200 to 300 of my friends and acquaintances. (blind copies, so that the recipient would not know that it was a bulk email). Later I learned that these email addresses had been imported from my facebook account, and that account also had been hacked.
     I was able to copy those addresses and send emails to all the addresses, warning that the previous email, sent with my name and address, was false and a scam, that my address had been hacked, but was now restored. One person had responded to the false email, offering help, and received an email response, requesting over one thousand dollars to be wired to an address in the UK. (Later, I learned that the is a common email scam.) I later sent this email to authorities, since the hacker had so kindly provided an address for the money to be sent to.
     Ironically, people told me that while they received the false email, their spam filters screened out my real message, warning about the scam! However, I am happy to report that no one fell for it.
(As for the “hurricane”, it did pass through as a little wind and rain, during that night, but we barely noticed it.)
     Thankfully, God has given us the correct “password” to enter His kingdom—the redeeming blood of Yeshua (Jesus). When we have His Spirit living in our heart, we have the password that unlocks the door to God's eternity. By repenting of our sin, believing that Yeshua died for our sin and rose from the dead, and asking Him to be Lord of our life, we give God the password to our heart. Then He can enter our heart as Our loving Lord and remove the false idols and put Himself in control and begin to undo the uncleanness that had been done in us and through us. And that gives us the password to be in His Kingdom forever. That is one password that I never want to forget!