East Providence Library E-Mail Account Hacked

Rumford branch librarian Denise Inman has never been to Spain—and she certainly hasn't gotten robbed there.

But people who receive e-mail from East Providence's account for youth services, epteens@yahoo.com, got a grammatically-challenged e-mailed letter last week that claimed to be from Denise.

The message, which went out at about 9:30 a.m. on March 3, said Denise was in Spain, that she'd been robbed and needed money.

Within an hour of the message going out, Inman got a call from library director Eileen Socha, who informed her she had gotten an e-mail from her that was from her, but really not from her.

Inman tried to access the account and found she couldn't because the password had been changed.

Soon, Inman said she got emails back from teens on the list saying: I hope you're OK, but I know you're OK.

"There are some pretty sharp-eyed teens out there," Inman said. Some had noticed that the account name epteens@yahoo.com had another 'n' in the address and wasn't exactly correct. They told her they thought she'd been hacked.

Inman said many other people she has talked to have had the same thing happen to them. She has no idea if it happened locally, but that it happens so often, police can't really investigate and there are "no fingerprints in cyberspace." Socha said they had reached out to Yahoo but had not gotten a response.

"I don't know how it could have happened," Inman said.

Since then, she's been able to use a secondary account she had tied to the epteens@yahoo.com account to go in and change the password. The account is now secure, she said, but the hacking did wipe out the contact list.

Inman recommends that when people sign up for e-mail addresses, they make sure to designate a secondary account, so they will be able to access the first account if it gets hacked.

And anyone who would like to know about teen events at the city's libraries who wants to be put on the email list should contact epteens@yahoo.com, Inman said.