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Web Based E-mail Question: Yahoo Problem

S

sgmorr

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 13, 2005
86
0
DFW area Texas
I know this isn't directly about Mac OS, but I figured somebody here would know so please bear with me.

I'm using Snow Leopard which is up to date and have a Yahoo Classic e-mail account but yesterday switched to the Yahoo New e-mail to give it a try. Whether this is a coincidence or not, this morning every address in my Yahoo contacts was hit with a spam e-mail appearing to come from my Yahoo address and it contained an advertisement for a Canadian online pharmacy selling Viagra.

I know this is not a Mac problem, it is a Yahoo problem. But has anyone else experienced this? Could it have been related to switching from Classic mail to New mail? Might it have been a one time fluke or will I have to establish a new Yahoo account and address?

I switched back to Yahoo Classic just for the heck of it.

Any thoughts?
 
Yahoo Classic and the new Yahoo are just webmail clients. They are just browser interfaces to Yahoo's mail system. They do not change the content on the system. You may switch between the new and Classic interfaces at will.

The fact that all of your contacts were SPAMmed is a coincidence. It is important to understand that your contact list need not have been breached through your account. If you have a family member, friend, or colleague who knows many of the same people, then that person's contact list may have been compromised.

Having said that, it is interesting that you mentioned this issue at this time. Recently, Yahoo added security measures to make it more of a PITA to access accounts from multiple computers. It is likely that these measures are in response to security breaches. However, the security breaches would have nothing to do with your switch from the Classic to the new interface. Most people made the switch years ago.
 
Thanks for your comments. A little internet searching this evening has revealed widespread reports of incidents such as this experienced by Yahoo users over a period of at least many, many months. The common thread is that their entire Yahoo address book gets hijacked and emails get sent out to everyone on their list and they appear to originate from the hijacked user's address. The emails frequently involve and ad for an online pharmacy which is selling Viagra.

There are many discussion and blog threads containing accounts of the hijacked users conversing back and forth with Yahoo and getting no good explanation or resolution of the issue. Some users have changed their passwords, deleted their contact lists or closed their Yahoo accounts if they've had repeated problems.

I've also seen reports of similar hijacks happening to Hotmail users.
 
sgmorr said:
.... A little internet searching this evening has revealed widespread reports of incidents such as this experienced by Yahoo users over a period of at least many, many months. The common thread is that their entire Yahoo address book gets hijacked and emails get sent out to everyone on their list and they appear to originate from the hijacked user's address....

I've also seen reports of similar hijacks happening to Hotmail users.
Click to expand...
It sounds like some people awakened to a brand new day. What you describe has been going on for more than a decade. You cannot stop SPAM, you can only control it.
 
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