Gmail Debacle

Hot on the heels of my twitter debacle, here’s another one. This time it came in the form of a spam mail which sold Viagra. Over the past weekend my Gmail was hacked and mails promoting Viagra were send to all the recipients registered in my mailing list including the managing director of my current company and also to the HR manager.

I was completely unaware of these developments until my reporting manager received a copy of the Viagra. He merrily laughed it off when I told him that it could be a spam mail. But when I received a message from a ‘once-upon-a-time’ colleague of mine asking, “Have you gone to that level?”, it became apparent that Viagra had reached the mail box of all the people I have ever send or received mails from/in my Gmail account.

Soon I received a mail from a HR asking, “What?” with a couple of exclamation marks. Having only joined the company a fortnight away, I wanted to set the reputation right. I fired off an apology mail to all the probable list of people who I figured might have received it.

I didn’t send the apology mail to my friends because I thought they might not have taken it seriously. Just before I went to bed that night, my mobile made its usual wailing noise it makes whenever it receives a message. A friend of mine had messaged, “don’t forget to check your mail box before you go to bed”. Curious, I opened my mail with its new password.

“Hey Joshi…” it said, “I read your mail. The product which you were talking about is not good. I tried it once, but it comes with some side effects. You don’t feel sleepy for a very long time after gulping it. I have shared a link below. Use that one. It is a much better product, I swear. So, long buddy, have a wonderful night”.