Cybersecurity: how an unknown hacker changed my life.

(For the better)

My Facebook account was hacked in 2016.

For about two weeks, an anonymous stranger on the internet had access to every post I had shared over the last six years of being active on social media.

He could read every message I had sent, go through every desperate 3 AM-call-for-help to my nearest ones.

He could see all the photographs I had shared with my boyfriend over the one year or so we spent in a long distance relationship.

Basically, someone gained access to a large chunk of my online life without me ever letting him in. It was akin to a stranger entering your home and looking through your personal documents and photographs without your consent.

And it was terrifying.

Soul-crushing, self-esteem shattering.

I had to pull some strings to gain access back into my account. But two weeks is a long time. He could have already made a backup of my files somewhere.

I got my Facebook account back, but the hacker was never caught. And it makes my breath catch in my throat every time I think that someone out there in the world has seen me at my most vulnerable.

To be honest, even now, three years down the line, I sometimes worry about what would happen if he chooses to release all the photographs and videos online.

This incident changed me as a person. It made me realize how easy it is to be a victim of cyber crimes, and how much effect threats like these have on a woman’s emotional and mental well-being.

This was when Tashi’s story started to dig roots in the deepest pits of my consciousness. I knew I had to share my story, my pain, and trauma with the world; and a fiction novella was the best way to do so.

And thus, my book, What did Tashi do? was born.

This book is my attempt to make people, especially women, aware of what are the consequences of cyberbullying and blackmail, and what options are available to them if they ever find themselves in such a situation.

It is a take on cybercrime that is so blatant in today’s digital world. The book is available worldwide on Amazon as an ebook. It can be downloaded directly onto your e-readers on Android and iOS devices (and read using the Amazon Kindle app).