Back Up

I’ve been unintentionally off the blog for two weeks. Unintentionally, because my computer was hacked three times in three months.

The first time, in April, we didn’t know my computer was the hacker’s way in. Hacked again exactly one month later, I happened to be on my computer and watched as I was locked out, Amazon and email opened, before I did a hard shut down. A work-issue computer that I also use personally, our IT department felt certain that they’d found the equivalent of “dust on my tires,” and that the malware program they installed would keep me safe.

They were wrong. I’d planned to keep my computer turned off on June 3, but those pesky hackers caught me off-guard by jumping in on June 2. Again, I happened to be sitting at my computer. They tried again to get to my Amazon account, but I no longer had my password stored, and my husband had set up two-factor authentication. Determined, I watched them search my computer for passwords before the shock wore off and I did another hard shut down.

Yesterday I got good news and bad news: I got a brand new computer (hooray!) and all my personal files were infected and have been wiped (wait, what? BOO!).

It seems that, because I didn’t want our staff to have access to my personal files, the way IT set up my files was not ideal. Not a techy, I didn’t know the desktop icon I clicked to access my files was any different than any of the other files on my desktop which are a) inaccessible to the staff and b) backed up on our server which means c) safe. In other words, I didn’t know that no back up was being done, that I should have been doing my own back up.

For nine years.

Nine years of writing, research, reading notes, correspondence, school files (including IEPs for those who know what that means), recipes, and God knows what else, all wiped out. And a draft of a book that, save for some footnotes yet to be added, was just about ready to send to a prospective publisher. A book I’ve been working on (ridiculously slowly) for three years. Gone.

I feel sick. Honestly, I waver between numb, sick, and angry.

There may yet be hope. The drive will be sent to a data recovery company who will charge a pretty penny to see what they can retrieve. Hope is the lifeline dragging me through the too-fast water slapping me in the face, choking me as I try not to drown…

Moral of the story: back up your work. If you don’t know if you need to, ask. Save yourself from this heartache.