Matthew Miller, writing a story that no one wants to write:
At 11:30 pm on Monday, 10 June, my oldest daughter shook my shoulder to wake me up from a deep sleep. She said that it appeared my Twitter account had been hacked. It turns out that things were much worse than that.
After rolling out of bed, I picked up my Apple iPhone XS and saw a text message that read, “T-Mobile alert: The SIM card for xxx-xxx-xxxx has been changed. If this change is not authorized, call 611.”
This reads like a nightmare, told with ever increasing dread. Yes, it does get worse.
Read to the end for a section called “Recommendations for your security” but, since all this is still not resolved, I’m hoping for a “Lessons learned” update. And, for Matthew’s sake, hope the resolution happens quickly.
Google sucks. I trusted them with a custom-domain Google Apps for my business, including files and email. After the business failed I stopped logging into it for a time as I picked up the pieces. Google later sent my personal email a notice saying they had deleted my Google Apps data due to inactivity. They claimed they had sent a warning, but I never saw one and could not find one. There was no way to recover the deleted data — so despite the IRS requiring me to keep records for years, it’s all gone. It’s been a big hassle with my accountant and attorney. Thanks, Google!
I have gone back to keeping my own copies of stuff and using Backblaze for cloud backups.
Not impressed with this author. He really seems naive in some security areas. Beginning with trusting Google with anything. Doesn’t know password managers, and the list goes on.
Google is Evil. Period.
And that, kids, is why wonder shouldn’t use Google for so much. But I GET IT. It’s incredibly convenient and for almost everyone, safe. But man, if you lose control of that… you’re screwed. Combine that with the fact that you can’t call them and get support people even if you are a paying customer and… no.