Category Archives: Problem Solving

Character, Problem Solving, Risk

Phishing Victim…..Me?

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I enjoy writing my blog. I really enjoy getting comments. That means that someone has read my Blog, and thought enough about it to take the time and write a comment. I put an effort into thinking about topics to write on and for the most part it appeared that the people that wrote comments did also. That was until recently.

In the last few months I started to get a significant number of comments. At first I thought this was pretty neat. We all like a little recognition and this increase in comments seemed to indicate that I might be getting some.

Not…

Upon closer inspection of this newfound number of comments I noticed that they all seemed to be based from “Russian” servers. This is only an assumption, but it is based on the URL nomenclature of the site that generating the comment. Russian? Really? Could I really be generating a following in Russia?

Still something about this seemed “Phishy”. So I decided that I would Google one of the more reasonable sounding sights to see if they truly existed. It generated another Blog site. I then decided to go to one of this more reputable sounding site. I went, I saw, and I read. No big deal.

That’s when it started. The next day I got notification from my site hosting service that they had complied with my wish to have my domain changed. My domain changed? Who requested that?

I then went to my site to see what this all meant. What is meant was my site was no longer where I had bookmarked it. My site had been hijacked.

I then called (not emailed, not IM’ed, called) my hosting provider and asked what was going on. They said that they had complied with my email request to relocate my site to another domain/server. This was obviously news to me.

After verifying (via security questions and the like) that I was in fact who I said I was, and that the site in question was indeed mine, we started down the road to reclaiming my site. After the appropriate programming magic was accomplished, we started back-tracking what had happened.

It appears that by even going to the supposedly acceptable site of one of my commenter’s I had somehow enabled them to get into my hosting account through the information I had left (like they leave at my site) at their site. They then hacked my account and hijacked my site.

This was again, and interesting and somewhat unsettling experience. But the greater question to me is: Why would someone want my site? There is not a significant amount of traffic there (from internet standards), nor are there any secrets. I guess I will have to be vigilant and watch for any issues that may arrive at a later date. In the mean time, I would ask and suggest that all who receive any of these strange / anomalous emails or comments to beware.

Leadership, Line of succession, Problem Solving

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One of the ways most of us made our way up the corporate ladder was to be able to answer the tough questions, and find solutions to the difficult problems. It is interesting in that the result of the problem answering capabilities that enabled most people to become leaders and executives also resulted in their moving to management levels that were farther and farther away from where the problems were. Executives must evolve from “go to” problem solvers to leaders who groom the next generation of “go to” problem solvers.


As an established problem solver it is easy to stay in that mode as an executive. Members of your team will bring you the problem and you will establish the direction or answer it. This is not the way to go. As you have moved up the ladder you have moved away from the line issues and problems. You have experience on how to deal with issues of the type you will hear about, but you are not on the line for that specific issue.


The way I dealt with this situation was straight forward. I told the team that I was reasonably aware of most of the major issues in the business. What I needed from the team was workable answers to the issues. The rule was then put in place that anybody could come and talk to me about any issue they had in the business as long as they also brought at least one workable answer.


This move enabled me to learn all that was going on, while providing some guidance and experience on the implemented solutions. It seemed to work very well. It enabled those that were directly involved with and closest to the issue to suggest solutions (which is always a good idea) and it provided the opportunity to have a check and balance (prioritization) based higher level business needs.


It also trained and groomed the next generation of problem solvers (line of succession) for the business, which helped create a stronger business.