Email Warning of Compromised Account(s)

[GDPR-354025]

34 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

Your Affinity Store account is tied to an email address, not a username, so you won't ever receive notifications for "American" at the Affinity Store.

 

But Alfred, I swear before all that is holy (forgive me, Lord) that that is the address I received all the Notifications at! Remember the "Replace Sky Background," and all the work William and George gave me? I swear on my Inpainting Brush Tool that I'm not lying, hallucinating, fabricating, prevaricating, or otherwise malingering. NOT ONLY THIS, but guess what? I have received nary a single Notification at the "American" email address--nor at the Tired of Being Hacked address, since I raised such a ruckus. Honest.

Someone here (I mean geographically) said maybe I've gotten the hacking attempt warnings because my user name is "American." I think I will change it.

 

[Alfred]

14 minutes ago, American said:

I swear before all that is holy (forgive me, Lord) that that is the address I received all the Notifications at!

 

I think you must have misunderstood me. I'm not disputing your claim that you have received notifications at the email address associated with your forum username "American": all I'm saying is that you will have received Affinity Store notifications at an email address (at Yahoo, or Gmail, or whatever) rather than at your "American" username as such. Apologies for any confusion caused by my pedantry!

[GDPR-354025]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

First question: Are you currently locked out of anything? If so, which account, and are you locked out of the Affinity Store, or the forums? (Presumably American is, at least, not locked out of the forums )

Second question: Are you aware that your forum account, and your Affinity Store account (where you download the software) are totally independent? They may (or may not) have the same email address, and they may (or may not) have the same password. It is possible for you to be locked out of one, but not locked out of the other.

(@dutchshader beat me to it )

 

Pardon me for missing this. See, what no one seems willing to believe, and I'll just have to accept that no one will believe it, is that I received Notifications for "American" at one email address (the one associated with the Affinity Store) for as long as I've had Affinity. I will just have to accept that my story is unbelievable (although I'm telling the truth). I'm not locked out of any account at present. At least I don't think so, but I will try to log into Tired of Being Hacked, which is the Affinity Store account.

Thanks!

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, American said:

Tired of Being Hacked, which is the Affinity Store account

 

As per my previous post to this thread, "Tired of Being Hacked" is a forum username. It may be tied to the same address as the one you use for your Affinity Store account, but the two accounts are not linked in any way.

 

[GDPR-354025]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

 

I think you must have misunderstood me. I'm not disputing your claim that you have received notifications at the email address associated with your "American" username: all I'm saying is that you will have received notifications at an email address (at Yahoo, or Gmail, or whatever) rather than at your "American" username as such. Apologies for any confusion caused by my pedantry!

 

You are a dear person or persons, Alfred. But you got it wrong. I have NEVER received Notifications at the email address associated with "American"--never, ever, ever. At one time, I corresponded frequently with a Serif forum member and my truly beloved Sixwheels. I had my fights with Serif at that address, and some of them were wing-dingers. When all my Notifications during the Replace the Background Sky appeared at that same email account, my technology-overburdened brain never for a moment questioned it or realized the, well, wrongness, because of the particular email address' connection since 2006 with Serif.

I think the important thing for Serif/Affinity is to let me know if other people have had hacking attempt warnings sent to them. I can always change my bankcard, but I don't remember which I used for such a small amount.

EDIT: I keep an extensive daily journal. Last year, on August 20, I entered the following: "Affinity sent me an email saying Ukrainians were trying to break into my account, so I had to change the password." I do not know what I meant by "Affinity," meaning that I changed the password presumably in the forum (thinking, wrongly, that was where one goes to change passwords) or...I don't know where else I'd change it. I am now locked out of Tired of Being Hacked, even though I used the password I changed on August 20. I have three passwords: one for the Store and two for my two Affinity Forum accounts. I checked my daily journal for 2017. I bought Legacy software within the past six months but bought it by phone, so I didn't have to use a password. I received the confirmation email of the purchase of the software on October 27 from "Serif Customer Services."

 

 

[GDPR-354025]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

 

As per my previous post to this thread, "Tired of Being Hacked" is a forum username. It may be tied to the same address as the one you use for your Affinity Store account, but the two accounts are not linked in any way.

 

This is true. The same email address IS used for both.

[Alfred]

When I wrote

 

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

Your Affinity Store account is tied to an email address, not a username, so you won't ever receive notifications for "American" at the Affinity Store.

 

you replied

 

1 hour ago, American said:

But Alfred, I swear before all that is holy (forgive me, Lord) that that is the address I received all the Notifications at!

 

yet now you're telling me (or at least you seem to be telling me) that you have never received any notifications at that address:

 

1 hour ago, American said:

I have NEVER received Notifications at the email address associated with "American"--never, ever, ever.

 

So now I'm really, really, really confused!

[GDPR-354025]

Thank you, Alfred. You have no idea how upset this has made me. When you said "Affinity Store," I said that the email address affiliated with the Affinity Store was the address and the only address I have ever received Notifications at. I have spent all afternoon (I realize it's very late your time now) trying to figure this out.

What I have come up with is this: the Affinity Store account--thanks to an "eye" that lets you see your password, is a password I thought I had changed last August 20, when I received the Affinity warning about attempts to access my account. I changed the password at that time, all right--but for the Forum account also associated with that same email address. So: Affinity Store + Old/Unused Affinity Forum Account share the same email address. This is where my ignorance enters the picture. I thought the warning on August 20 was about some hackers trying to access my Affinity Forum account. I thought that was pretty pathetic, but I changed the Forum password.

At the end of October, I purchased Legacy software by phone because the Legacy stuff isn't available online anymore. No password issue therefore was in play.

So last week, after downloading the updated software, I receive a warning similar to August 20. As Callum explained it excellently, believing that the "good old" email address was the email address associated with "American," and--much more importantly--believing that again, hackers were trying to hack my Forum account, I attempted to use the Password Change Request automated email Affinity sent me (to fight off the hackers). But in fact, that address was not the one associated with "American." Hence, all the misunderstandings (mine) that Callum elucidated.

BUT-- Callum said I have two accounts. Well, I actually have three. 1) Affinity Store; 2) Affinity Forum (Old and Unused); and 3) Affinity Forum "American." Now as of today, I have three different passwords associated with three different accounts.

The problem is that I have never changed the password Affinity was telling me to change--that belonging to the Affinity Store. I wish the warning emails from Affinity specified, clearly, your Affinity Store password has been accessed by strangers. If that had been the case, I would have still probably not understood...specifically because I associate my oldest email address (1994) with Serif/Affinity/everything Serif-related. And once again, I have never--not one day (I checked)--received a single Notification to "American" at the correct, newer email address associated with "American." Not once.

But if it hadn't been for your defining the problem--first, that I had two Forum accounts (what you did last week); second, that I had to have an Affinity Store account--I would never have even begun to understand. (Clearly, I wouldn't have, or else I'd have changed the Store account password last August 20, when what I changed that date was the Forum password that uses the same email address as the Store).

I will change the Store password now. I would only ask that if you're really the, like, Lord Palpatine of Serif/Affinity, only, you know, going disguised among your subjects here on the forums, like a much nicer king , you tell your employees to make sure their warnings specify clearly they want you to change your Store password. I believe strongly that many Affinity users use the same email account for Forum and Store, and if they're as naive (or stupid) as I am, they might go through the exact trauma I've gone through this past week.

THANK YOU.

[EDIT: Ah ha! I am not as stupid as I seem! I just looked at the warning emails to check and see if the word "Store" appears anywhere therein. It does not. In big bold letters at the top, font size maybe 72, it says Affinity|Forum. So it was only natural to think the "accounts" that had been "compromised" were Forum accounts.]

[Alfred]

Just now, American said:

Thank you, Alfred. You have no idea how upset this has made me.

 

On the contrary, you've made it abundantly clear how upsetting all of this has been for you, and I'm very sorry to hear it!

 

I just wanted to quickly reply to that point. I shall now go back and read the rest of your post.

 

[Callum]

I'm glad we have gotten to the bottom of this issue!

 

C

[Alfred]

12 hours ago, American said:

if you're really the, like, Lord Palpatine of Serif/Affinity

 

LOL. I feel a change of avatar coming on! But to answer your implied question, I am not a Serif employee: all Serif staff display a ‘Staff’ badge like the one you see below @Callum’s avatar.

 

12 hours ago, American said:

THANK YOU.

 

You’re very welcome.

 

12 hours ago, American said:

[EDIT: Ah ha! I am not as stupid as I seem! I just looked at the warning emails to check and see if the word "Store" appears anywhere therein. It does not. In big bold letters at the top, font size maybe 72, it says Affinity|Forum. So it was only natural to think the "accounts" that had been "compromised" were Forum accounts.]

 

It was more than just natural for you to think what you did, since they effectively told you to think that. I’m glad you’ve managed to unravel the mystery despite all the obstacles.

[GDPR-354025]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

You’re very welcome.

Thank you, Alfred. I would never have understood the problem without your persistent support. Affinity didn't send me Notifications about this message either. That's sad, since I have "Notifications" turned on. "Notifications" don't even turn up in a Spam folder (I checked). Well, if Affinity doesn't like me, I like it. If anyone from Affinity reads this, it would be a nice thing to be able to receive Notifications, as I received them at the other email address as recently as last Friday.

I hope someone does something helpful and kind for you this week, Alfred. You deserve it.

[Callum]

On 04/04/2018 at 3:00 PM, Pšenda said:

 

Like Google, Facebook, Dropbox, MS, ....

First step: UserName + Pasword.

Second step: Code, that was sent to the SMS.

This isn't something we are planning to add at the moment  

[Pšenda]

Thank you for the info.