E-mail Spam Issue

[nygiants242]

Hey Guys,

My mom's Yahoo e-mail account just sent out e-mails to all of her contacts containing a random link. Obviously her account has somehow been compromised. She insists she never clicked on anything though. However, when I go to check the "Sent" folder, it appears as if no e-mails were sent. I add this fact, because I am wondering if her e-mail account has truly been compromised and if changing her password is not enough.

What exactly happened? What should I advise her to do?

Thanks!

PS: She also uses Yahoo on her iPhone, but does not use any mail client on her Mac. Just the web version on Safari.

 

[GGJstudios]

Hey Guys,

My mom's Yahoo e-mail account just sent out e-mails to all of her contacts containing a random link. Obviously her account has somehow been compromised. She insists she never clicked on anything though. However, when I go to check the "Sent" folder, it appears as if no e-mails were sent. I add this fact, because I am wondering if her e-mail account has truly been compromised and if changing her password is not enough.

What exactly happened? What should I advise her to do?

It sounds like her email address was spoofed by a spammer. Have her change her passwords, and make sure they're long and complex, to make them secure.

 

[gnasher729]

Hey Guys,

My mom's Yahoo e-mail account just sent out e-mails to all of her contacts containing a random link. Obviously her account has somehow been compromised. She insists she never clicked on anything though. However, when I go to check the "Sent" folder, it appears as if no e-mails were sent. I add this fact, because I am wondering if her e-mail account has truly been compromised and if changing her password is not enough.

What exactly happened? What should I advise her to do?

Your mom is completely innocent. Yahoo messed up big time and lost tons of accounts and passwords (about 250,000). That's why spam emails are sent from her account. The most important thing is to change all of her Yahoo related passwords. And if she used the same passwords elsewhere, change them in all other places. Warn her contacts not to click on any links in emails coming from her.

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

Everything that Gnasher said. Plus, log out of her Yahoo webmail first, THEN log back in to change her password.

Also, any friends or family with att email? --That's routed through Yahoo servers too and has also been messed with. Same thing, log out, then log back in and change passwords. To reiterate what Gnasher stated, it wasn't a problem with the users' passwords, it was Yahoo servers that were vulnerable for 8 months since the problem was identified, and which allowed their users' Contacts to be scraped.