hi guys, long time lurker here, but decided it was worth a post if it saved at least one contributor some stress.

On the 1st, i was doing my tallying up of earnings/withdrawals as usual when i noticed something suspicious (a withdrawal of earnings to someone else's email) on Depositphotos.  I quickly contacted DP support, changed the password, etc.  But this got me a bit worried about the other sites i submit to (top 15).  Long story short, it seems only the payment earnings email was changed on: Shutterstock and Depositphotos.

I emailed shutterstock support (hopefullly they will get back to me asap) as well as the same steps with DP mentioned above.  When i changed back my earnings email back to the original one, i received an email notification from SS telling me an account detail has been changed.  While this is good, what worried me is that when it was changed to some other person's email for payment, i never received a notification (and i checked spam folder too). 

Not wanting to start a panic...but...i'm pretty concerned that someone could have changed my earnings email address without any of the usual notification email from SS. 

My email/stock sites passwords differ, so i don't think my email was compromised. 

So...guys, do a double check on your earnings emails to be safe.

If someone hacked your computer and email, maybe they deleted the notification email from SS?  I would change everything from a different computer and make sure the one you are using is safe.

I found the same problem: my pay pal address was missing. I reentered, but we will receive our money this month?

 

Mine was gone too so I have added it back. !! Thanks for the warning elnacho

Mine was blank as well.  Hopefully they will still pay us this month, as this isn't our fault.

My SS payment address was also blank... 

I checked my paypal address, it's still there. And I haven't received any pre-payment email yet. And my monthly earnings for April still haven't been withdrawn.

I checked based on this thread.  Payment address is still listed and correct.  I didn't get the email either.  Nor have my earnings been removed.

The same thing just happened to me, and more.    All my accounts were hacked! On the 5/31/2016 payment e-mail was changed to another in Shutterstock, Istock and Dreamstime. They managed to withdraw money from Dreamstime, Skrill (yes, they hacked my skrill account too) and maybe Fotolia (I can't really see to which e-mail the money from Fotolia are going, but I wrote to them and expect them to answer. And I did not authorize credit convertions on this date).

elnacho, did you find any solution for this? How can we stop that theft? And from where do they know our passwords? If anyone has some knowledge about internet security and protection - we will be very greatfull for some advice.

It looks that there is some keylogger is running in your system, which silently log/save all your key strokes (everything you type including password, web address, your credit card no, etc) and sending these information to some server or some one hacker email. Check your bank balances etc.  May be some backdoor trojan (hidden software)  is running and hacker is remotely monitoring you. In windows, remote access is enable by default.

First of all, use clean system to change all your sensitive password including email, stock sites, skrill, online/virtual banking etc. If another clean system is not available then install fresh operating system and then change passwords.   

In fact, there is no single solution for security measurement. We have to use combination of tools for this purpose.

Update your anti-virus: Many viruses created daily, anti-virus database should be update to catch these new addition.

Use firewall: Any program when attempt to connect to internet, firewall message popup asking you for connection permission. Allow only those application which you trust i.e browser, anti-virus, skype etc.

Comodo internet security is free and consist of HIPS (Host Intrusion Prevention System), firewall sandboxie  anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti-roottkit, defence++ https://www.comodo.com/.


Use key scramble tool, which will encrypt your type keys at kernel level and if any keylogger exits, then it will capture only garbage. One such tool is https://www.qfxsoftware.com/

Rootkits are very dangerous. Many malware and anti virus scanner can't detect them.  Rootkit drivers hook inside operating system and these program are not visible in many process viewer tool. Special tools such as PCHUNTER, POWERTOOL, ( GMER http://www.gmer.net)  etc are used to remove these rootkit.  These are free tool.

In windows, use restricted and guest account. By default, when windows install it is using administrator account, which is very powerful and if trojan/virus/malware got inside using this account, it can do whatever hacker want.

Be carefull about email with attachments,  keygen, patch or crack from warez/illegal site, torrent, activex or exe file downloads from porn site etc. They all have viruses, trojan, keylogger and suspicious software.

Use autorun from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx which will shows what process, services, driver, browser hijack etc are starting with your windows operating system. 

Don't use many and untrusted browser addon or extension (firefox addon, chrome extension etc). These addon are script, which run by browser and mostly no anti-virus, anti-keylogger, anti-malware will detect them as they are not external process but run inside browser.

Never use computer for logging at website at public palaces, cyber cafe, friends computer,  computer at offce/job/compnay. Your activities can be monitor and may be some keylogger is running. 

Never save your login information User name and password in readable format. For eg saving in word, text, excel, pdf etc format. Use password manager tool for saving sensitive information in encrypted form.  KeyPass is another such great and free tool http://keepass.info/. I have saved all my password in it and only need to remember one master password.

Never used browser password manager for saving your login passwords without browser master key password. If someone has access to your computer, he can view all your saved user name and passwords

Windows file systen NTFS support Windows Alternate Data Streams.  This can also be use to hide suspicious file in it, which can not be visible in windows explorer or any third party file manager tool.  Detail information can be found at
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/windows-alternate-data-streams/

FORUM
People discussion about their windows security setup, lots of information.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/what-is-your-security-setup-these-days.111264/page-1517

I used all the above tools.

My email was changed this morning and I get notification about it from SS...