As we're still getting back on our proverbial horses after our very fun but furiously fast trip to the UK, we have a whole lot to get caught up on at home. DIY projects, day job deadlines, and other maintenance items that need a look (like a fridge with very little food), were all unceremoniously placed on hold for four days, and they desperately need some attention. But one thing above all others jumped into my focus on Tuesday morning, and I feel like it's important I take a moment to talk about it (even though Wendy says "You're seriously writing a post about that? OMG, SO BORING!").

I'm not sure if you've heard, but my nerd corner of the Internet has been all a buzz about an event that occurred last Friday, August 3rd. A single incident of outright malicious Internet graffiti in the name of fun, with the victim, Mat Honan, a tech writer for Wired who once worked for Gizmodo (a tech website). Honan, who happens to be a high profile target in the tech world, had his life turned upside down because a few teenage hackers had it out for him, or more specifically, his twitter account "Mat."

Before I get into it, let me first say, this post may seem like it is rather out of left field, given the typical DIY/our life and living in Old Town type of posts. However, I feel like I am qualified enough in the field of Internet security that I can do a bit of a service to our readers who would otherwise not have heard about this until it is too late, until they have fallen victim to what Mat Honan has had to endure.

I've actually been professionally involved in Internet security for many years, and my involvement started out as a hobby for me back in college (I apparently pick weird hobbies). Yes, my geekyness doesn't stop at putting underglow on my desk, running thousands of feet of network cable in our 125 year old house, or building my own DIY server rack for all of my home's network and audio gear. I'm nerd, though and through.

I figure the population of our readers probably have a pretty significant online presence, many of whom are bloggers themselves, and this sort of destruction would be simply unimaginable if it happened to me. So I'm going to put my knowledge of the Internet and its most easily implemented security practices to use and hopefully help you protect yourself.

This is scary stuff in today's digital age, but it's easy to protect yourself as long as you know how. Besides, quite honestly, protecting yourself and your online life is really almost totally a DIY endeavor. (Do you see what I did right there?)

So What Happened?

The gist of Honan's story is simple, but shocking. On Friday, August 3, Mat Honan's digital life of email, contacts, photographs, documents, appointments, and anything else he had worked for and stored on his computer or iPhone, was wiped out in a matter of minutes. It was all done by a person or small group of people with malicious intent, and it was all done using public knowledge of systems and a form of social engineering (the term used when someone gains unauthorized access to systems through coercion rather than technical means). And I think the worst part is that it was all done simply by gaining access to personal and cloud hosted email accounts from Apple and Gmail. So if you use any Apple products (like an iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iCloud, etc), have a Gmail account, or have an email account through some other provider like Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, or anywhere else (that narrows the population of those at risk to a few billion), it's important that you keep reading so you can protect yourself.

There were no viruses on Honan's computers, no wiretaps in his home, and nobody working on "the inside," as you might see in movies.