members Wednesday evening: Spammers/scammers are conning or cracking their
way into Website-based email accounts, then using these accounts to send out
spam.
Here's what generally happens: The account is taken over and spam or scam is
sent from it. The perpetrators often do one of two things to wrest control
of the account: Change the settings to forward incoming messages to their
bogus account, or change the ReplyTo so replies will go to their account.
(Their bogus account seems to usually be a Yahoo! Mail account.) (One result
is that the messages to the actual owner along the lines of, "Do you know
your account has been cracked?" may not reach the owner.)
At best, the actual owner of the account has a lot of work to do to recover
the account and regain "face", especially with "institutional" contacts such
as the email provider. At worst, the email account must be closed and all
contacts and message archives are lost. (But these perpetrators have
absolutely no concern about that.)
Action to take if you've been cracked:
1. Change the password if you can.
2. Contact the email provider (by phone if possible, or to the email address
for fraud), and do what they tell you.
3. Go into your account settings (if you're able) and look for forwarding or
ReplyTo entries, and change the settings back.
BUT FIRST: Prevention, in this case will be worth more than a few pounds of
cure.
1. Never use your "real" email for Yahoo! Groups, forums, etc. Get a free
email account for that purpose. Then, at least your real email won't be
gotten at. (I also use a different account for dealings with vendors, so as
to avoid spam.)
2. ABSOLUTELY NEVER REVEAL YOUR PASSWORD! (The ONLY exception: To a tech rep
whom you've phoned--then, when your problem is resolved, change the
password.) (In this day and age, there's only the rarest reason to share an
email account; get your own.)
3. Use a strong password. My favorite scheme is to use a string of
characters that represent a phrase; for instance, "Mfsi2uasoctrap". What!?
Exactly! But that's simply the first part of the previous sentence (with "2"
in place of "to").
4. These perps are going after Webmail; if you use an email client (a
program on your computer) to interface with your email, you'll take away
their opportunity. (This will work with Gmail or Hotmail, but not with
Yahoo! Mail free/US.)
In the past three months, I've heard of at least four people who've had
their email totally messed up by these lowlifes (one was able to recover,
but found out who her real friends were; another lost the bulk of an online
business). Don't let it happen to you!
------------------------------------
Be sure to check out our Links Section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/links
Please join our Discussion Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters_discussion/ for topical but extended discussions started here or for less topical but nonetheless relevant messages.Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
californiadisasters-digest@yahoogroups.com
californiadisasters-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
californiadisasters-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment