Hackers invade artlounge!

ART lovers were the target of a con to dupe them out of cash after computer hackers broke into the emails of artlounge organiser Marion Labani and sent messages asking for money.

As soon as Ms Labani realised what was happening she tried to contact as many people as possible to warn them that the emails were a hoax and, so far, it seems she has been successful and no-one has lost any cash.

She said: "It's unbelievable that people are able to do this sort of thing, I have now closed down the art.lounge@hotmail.com address and I will let people know when there is a secure alternative available."

German, Marion, helped set up artlounge, which organises exhibitions of the work of local artists, almost a year ago and since then she has built up a large contact base of supporters and enthusiasts.

Earlier this month she realised her computer had been hit by a serious virus which deleted the security protection programme allowing the hackers to strike.

They changed the password to the artlounge email address so Ms Labani was unable to access the account then sent messages to as many as 800 people claiming Ms Labani was in trouble in London and needed financial help.

Those who replied were asked to deposit money through a Western Union address but Ms Labani had never left Bahrain and the whole tale was a plot.

She said: "I was contacted by people who would have been prepared to help, and it's very nice to know that people were concerned about me in that way but at the same time it's horrible to think that they, and artlounge, could have been exploited in this way."

Ms Labani immediately contacted her service provider and explained the problem.

After answering several in depth questions she was sent a link enabling her to change the password on the account.

But she said: "I gave them an alternative email address to send the link to, which they did, but they also sent it to the original artlounge address so the hackers had access to it as well.

"I didn't realise this until I had gone into the account, changed the password and started trying to contact people telling them not to send money.

"I was able to use the account for about 20 minutes before the hackers again changed the password and I was locked out!"

Another call to the internet service provider proved fruitless as the problem kept happening over and over until Ms Labani decided to change the password every 15 minutes until she had managed to copy her whole contact address list.

Once that was accomplished she immediately closed the account and set about getting in touch with her friends and business contacts to let them know what had happened.

She said: "I still don't know how many of the people on my contact list were affected, most likely all of them received the initial email.

"I want to let everyone know what has happened and make sure nobody sends money to these people.

"It's a really horrible thing to have this happen but at least I caught it early and, hopefully, nobody lost any money."

Ms Labani is now planning to set up a new contact point for artlounge and she will be advising people of this in the near future.