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Compromised E-mail Account

by Nightengale
16 replies
Hi Warriors,

I received a message from my Web hosting company that my Yahoo account has been compromised. They told me "...your Yahoo account has been taken over for quite some time now, sending spam to everyone in your address book, and has an autoreply setup sending out more spam. You may want to change your password and look through your yahoo account."

I've changed the password, but does this completely fix the problem? This account is not my main account. I use it as a throwaway account and as a backup e-mail account for things like Web hosting.

Is there anything else I need to do?

Thanks,
Michelle
#account #compromised #email
  • Profile picture of the author ozduc
    First of all are you sure that the message was REALLY from your hosting provider? Scammers usually use that tactic to get you to click the link in the email which will take you to a login page that looks like it is supposed to, then they have your information.
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  • Profile picture of the author CliveG
    Sounds a bit like a scam to me. Why would your web hosting company be interested in your Yahoo account? If you were really sending a huge volume of spam from your Yahoo account it would probably be shut down and if you were spamming your address book wouldn't your friends have told you by now?

    I suggest that you change your password again making very sure that you log in from a real Yahoo page before doing so.
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  • Profile picture of the author tyroneshum
    Hi Michelle,

    For me, the best way to deal with that is to "confirm" that report directly to your web hosting provider's (you should use the same contact details they've provided since you started with them) and give them the exact information you receive from either them (if they really sent this) or from scam user. I'm so sure they could assist you further on this and if this did come from them as you confirm this with their tech support team.

    I hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author idell
    Security is really a question here. Please make sure that the e-mail you received really comes from your web host provider - just like tyroneshum said. Just in case that you are not yet sure with this, it is best to change you password again - CliveG said. With this two tips, you can be sure. And if you want your password to be safe while changing it, you can use notepad. Type it there, and then copy and paste it in the password field of your mail account. Notepad is safe to any keyboard press detection if in case there is a spyware installed in your computer.
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    • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
      I don't see how your web hosting company could know anything about your yahoo account.

      Have you looked to see if your account really does have an autoreply set up?

      To do this - click on "options" (top right of your screen), then "Mail options", then "holiday response". See if anything has been added there.

      To me, that email sounds like the classic scam message - was there a link to click on to confirm your details?????
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  • Profile picture of the author yianni
    i would suggest phoning your website provider

    and double checking, best to be sure!
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  • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
    I think this is a scam
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  • Profile picture of the author davewebsmith
    As CliveG says what does your hosting company have to do with your Yahoo account

    Surely Yahoo would have contacted you by now

    Google Phishing - its a tactic to lure users to disclose their user/pass so they can hijack that information - popular with banks/paypal/email/ebay etc

    The general rule of thumb is always log into the site by typing the url not following links which can look like the authentic sites

    Hope this helps
    Dave WebSmith
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    • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
      My Web hosting provider knows this because I have to list a secondary e-mail address -- one other than the e-mail address associated with my Web site. If my Yahoo account has been hacked and is sending out spam, my hosting provider would receive it.

      Michelle
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      • Profile picture of the author evollusion
        My first instinct is that this is a phishing email message. There are all kinds of scams like this going around and these phishers can get all kinds of information from you. I am a information security analyst at a financial institution and we get alerts for things like this all the time.

        The person that mentioned going directly through your browser window was exactly right. Its not a bad idea to change your password once every 6 months anyway. On a side note, the best passwords are over 8 characters and have both numbers, letters (lower and upper case), and at least one special character in them. For instance, if you were to set your password as "password" you could do it like this "P@s$w0rd" (the o is a zero), or "mycookies" could be changed to "My(o0k!Ez" (the second o is a zero again).

        There are several things that you can do to check the email if you are interested in finding out whether or not this is a phishing message. First if they provide a link for you to click on hover the mouse over it and look in the bottom left hand corner of your browser window (for most browsers). If the link goes to yahoo-dot-com or mail-dot-yahoo that is one indication that the link might be legitimate. If it is a phisher and he/she is smart it will be some funky variation of yahoo so be VERY careful when reading it.

        These guys are VERY crafty so always be suspect of any email that requests that you change or enter your password somewhere even if the email is sent legitimately. I'm sure that yahoo has in their agreement that they will never request your password and I'm sure this falls under that type of purview.
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      • Profile picture of the author CliveG
        Originally Posted by Nightengale View Post

        My Web hosting provider knows this because I have to list a secondary e-mail address -- one other than the e-mail address associated with my Web site. If my Yahoo account has been hacked and is sending out spam, my hosting provider would receive it.

        Michelle
        Of course the spamming email may just have been a "Joe Job" (Google the term if you don't know what it is). But change your password anyway and contact your hosting company just in case you really are under attack!

        Clive
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      • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
        Originally Posted by Nightengale View Post

        My Web hosting provider knows this because I have to list a secondary e-mail address -- one other than the e-mail address associated with my Web site. If my Yahoo account has been hacked and is sending out spam, my hosting provider would receive it.

        Michelle
        Did you check to see if the auto reply has been set?
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  • Profile picture of the author webdollarz
    Also change your security question and answer that yahoo uses to verify your credentials before resetting your password.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Louis Monk
    Sounds very much like a spam, but how did the scammers know your webhosting company. Is this advertised on the same site as your Yahoo email address?

    Just heard of another scam yesterday. Beware of opening too many tabed pages in your browser and leaving idle especially if one is a login page to your bank.
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    • Profile picture of the author davewebsmith
      [QUOTE=David Louis Monk;2205923]Sounds very much like a spam, but how did the scammers know your webhosting company. Is this advertised on the same site as your Yahoo email address

      There are harvesters that check whois records for email addresses, not all of them require CAPTCHA to reveal this whois data,

      You can also get alot of information using the Trace route in CPanel

      As for finding the host, that is sometimes easy by finding the NameServer or NS usually set the that of the host eg) ns1.xxxxxx(dot)com

      Spoofing email is simple, if you know how to do it

      Most of the time however this is a generic email send to lists of harvested email addresses that are gathered via many different meduims - Could be that in this case Michelle had those 2 specific services

      @Michelle, was there a ticket from your host or just a random email?? Most ISP/Host will use a ticketing system with customers
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    • Profile picture of the author webdollarz
      Didn't know that this could be dangerous.

      Originally Posted by David Louis Monk View Post

      Just heard of another scam yesterday. Beware of opening too many tabed pages in your browser and leaving idle especially if one is a login page to your bank.
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