All kinds of amazing stuff comes out of Sherrilyn Kenyon's computer. This best-selling author spins tales of vampires, dark-hunters, gods and demons.
Her stories of suspense attract legions of fans, eager for her tales of the battle of good versus evil.
But Kenyon is fighting a real-life computer battle of her own–and so far? She's losing.
Sherrilyn Kenyon, author"I was horrified."
Kenyon had big time trouble on Twitter. She was devoted to the social networking site, racking up thousands of followers. Until, suddenly, she tried to sign in and was locked out.
Sherrilyn Kenyon, author"I had no control with my account. I could do nothing with my account."
She tried again and again but nothing. And then someone else started tweeting from her account starting by posting this video:
(Blondie video, song: One Way or Another")
"One way or another, I'm gonna get you." Was that a threat? And then there were ugly insults in what Kenyon learned was Bulgarian.
Sherrilyn Kenyon, author"My entire fan base is looking at those posts.
More frightening: what other tweets did this imposter plan?
Sherrilyn Kenyon, author"My thoughts were I'm liable for whatever hate speech they want to write and I didn't know how far they would go."
How could her account be hijacked?? we found it's something that happens on all the social networking sites.
We found tweet-jacking's already happened to President Obama and Britney Spears. On Myspace, too–Kanye West and Alicia Keyes and Lindsay Lohans pages were taken over by hackers. Experts warn: its not just famous people and once they get in, your space becomes their space.
Patrick O'Malley, Social Media Consultant, 617-PATRICK, http://www.617patrick.com/"There are evil people in the world, and that's how they manifest themselves in computers today and on social networks."
And trying to take back your site may be tough. Kenyon emailed Twitter for weeks but only got emails pointing her to a help page. After our inquiry, Twitter closed her account. But she still has no access to her bewildered fans!
Sherrilyn Kenyon, Author"I don't think they understand that somebody can come into their account and in a heartbeat totally lock them out."
How to stop it? Hackers write programs that will test millions of passwords, till they find yours. Twitter would not talk to us about what happened in Kenyon's case they emailed: the best tip we can recommend is creating a strong password.
Experts told us:* Don't use a word in the English dictionary.* Use both letters and numbers. * Use different passwords for each account.
Otherwise: your account could be next.
Patrick O'Malley, Social Media Consultant, 617-PATRICK, http://www.617patrick.com/"They can sound like you. They can speak on your behalf. And really, that's about as bad as it can be."
What happened to Kenyon is still a mystery, she says her password was unhackable. But experts warn: be careful using your password on free wireless. And never use the same password on your networking sites that you use on your bank accounts or those may be the next under attack.(Copyright (c) 2009 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)