Yahoo! Mail Account Holders Under Scammers’ Microscope

As per the news reports from Harlingen (Texas), attackers are victimizing users by means of personalized e-mail scams.

A local lady named Ruth Reyes is the latest victim of one of these attacks. Reyes received an e-mail from Yahoo that was asking her to provide her account password, username and birthday.

The e-mail even warned her that in case Reyes fails to provide the asked details, her e-mail account would be blocked. It was just the beginning. Scammers used her details to send a similar e-mail to her friends listed on her address book.

The forged e-mail received by one of her friends stated that she was deserted in the UK. The e-mail further read that as she was in trouble in the UK, she required money, which probably the scammers wanted her friends to wire.

Despite the fact that scam was still going on, Reyes realized that something was going wrong, and hence decided to alert others of this scam.

In the meantime, Yahoo! Mail also came forward to warn netizens. It asked them not to disclose their passwords to anyone like Reyes did. It also said that if users receive any suspicious e-mail on its behalf, they must report the case to Yahoo without making any unnecessary delay.

In this context, Yahoo has published a "Yahoo Mail Abuse Form" on its official website for the users to fill and inform about the scam. This information helps the company to track the fraudster sending that fake e-mail in the name of the company.

Security experts further said that it becomes essential for them to track and catch hold of scammers because they con a large number of Internet users. In fact, phishers used the typical e-mail scamming ingredients in case of Reyes. In such cases, some of the recipients of these phishing e-mails do fall for the scam and commit the mistake of wiring money to the fraudsters. In fact, they create a state of urgency and panic for the recipients through their phishing e-mails. And, in this way, the purpose of the scammers is solved.

Related article: Yahoo Gets “Yam”med by a Worm

» SPAMfighter News - 10/2/2009