(IMPORTANT: Before I get to my story, if your Yahoo! email has been hacked I recommend that you immediately change your password, update your security questions and ensure your Yahoo! Mobile and Y! Messenger are both up-to-date. You should also visit Yahoo! Email Abuse Help and use this process if you are unable to login to your Yahoo! account. Also, make sure to read the comments on this post since there is a tremendous amount of good information there as well.)
(UPDATE 12/13/11: Yahoo has introduced second sign-in verification as an added security measure. It will require that you add a mobile phone number and verify it via a text message. Here’s the direct link to start using second sign-in verification.)
It happened just before we arrived at the San Francisco Zoo. We are at a red light on Sloat Boulevard when my phone started to vibrate.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Had the rapture come a day late? No. I was getting undeliverable messages. Lots of them. My Yahoo email had been hacked!
Here are the two important lessons I learned as a result.
I Have Good Friends
I didn’t want our day at the Zoo ruined, me staring into my phone resetting passwords and figuring out what happened. So I put the problem on the back burner and proceeded to have a fun family day.
But I did take time to quickly tap out a response to people who replied to the spam coming from my hijacked account. Why? Because they took the time and effort to give me a heads up that I had a problem. These were good people. Good friends.
The thing is, I’d gotten a number of these same emails lately from other hacked Yahoo accounts. I figured these people knew they’d been compromised and I didn’t need to respond. With the shoe on the other foot, I realized those emails were comforting even though I was well aware of the problem.
I’ll shoot off an email the next time I get a hacked email from someone.
Yahoo Email Security Failed
The odds are that I will get another one of those emails because I learned just how easy Yahoo makes it for hackers.
Upon getting home I went about securing my account. On a lark, I checked Yahoo’s ‘View your recent login activity’ link.
Sure enough at 10:03 AM my account was accessed from Romania. This obvious login anomaly didn’t set off any alarms? Shouldn’t my security questions have been presented in this scenario? I have never logged in from Romania before.
I’ve never logged in from outside the US. Yahoo knows this. In fact, Yahoo knows quite a bit about my location.
My locations puts me in three states: California, New York and Pennsylvania. I also have location history turned on, so it’s not just my own manually saved locations (some of which are ancient), but Yahoo’s automated location technology keeping track of me.
Do you see Romania in this list? I don’t.
Why is Yahoo making it this easy for spammers to hijack accounts? Make them work a little bit! At a minimum, make them spoof their location.
Yahoo should have noted this anomaly and used my security questions to validate identity. I still would have had to change my password (which wasn’t that bad) but I would have avoided those embarrassing emails.
A simple rule set could have been applied here where users are asked to validate identity if the login (even a successful one) is outside of a 500 mile radius of any prior location.
I’ve had a Yahoo account for over 10 years without a problem, even as I moved my business accounts over to Gmail.
Yesterday I thanked those friends who had my back. Unfortunately, Yahoo wasn’t one of them.
The Next Post: Google SEO Communication
The Previous Post: SEO Freeloaders
Comments About Yahoo Email Hacked
// 213 comments so far.
Ioana // May 25th 2011
Oops! We do have quite a few hackers in Romania…
Is it perhaps safer to use an e-mail account associated with your website’s domain? I’ve often wondered if it wouldn’t actually attract more hackers.
I always found Yahoo’s security questions rather idiotic, as it’s not hard to find out the honest answers, so you actually need to lie and remember what was the false information you gave.
Paula // May 31st 2011
Thank you for posting this! I had the same thing happen to me this morning. I checked my Recent Login Activity this is what it showed:
6:22 AM — Yahoo!Mobile — Logged In — NETHERLANDS
6:22 AM — Yahoo!Mobile — Logged In — NETHERLANDS (yes, twice)
6:45 AM — Browser — Logged In — FL, US (where I am)
6:46 AM — Browser — Logged In — CA, US (huh???)
6:46 AM — Browser — Logged In — FL, US (wait, no alarms? Seriously?)
The one in CA set off extra alarms for me, for sure. I went into my mail security (gives a list with General, Spam, etc.) and selected “Accounts”. There was one very much like one of my alternate accounts from my profile, but had a different @ extension. It also was the only one there that didn’t forward everything to my yahoo inbox.
Thanks again for your good attitude about this. It really helped me keep perspective! (I have email addresses in my address list that I haven’t communicated with in…a decade? More? LOL)
aj // June 03rd 2011
Paula,
Thank you for sharing your own experiences and showing, yet again, the ease in which Yahoo could detect malicious behavior.
anon // June 07th 2011
I had to again change my yahoo password because I was locked out of my account. Afterwards, my Yahoo login activity showed a browser in California with what appears to be Yahoo’s IP address logging into my account twice after I changed my password. If yahoo, why would they do that?
TN // June 10th 2011
I had the same problem of log-ins from Latvia. Every so often I go to check my recent activity, tried doing so today and the link off my account information page is no longer there to view my activity.
KG // June 25th 2011
Thanks for the helpful post. I, too, seem to suddenly be among the ranks of the recently hacked. Given the above post and comments, I immediately jumped to my recent login activity to find the culprits hailing from Serbia and Poland. Not surprisingly, the keywords that popped out were “Yahoo Mobile”. I only use 1 mobile device and am most certain the leak did not come from a computer (as email now done on ipad which never leaves home). This leads me to suspect that the Droid is somehow getting tapped for info. If so, fair warning.
As I did not get locked out of my account, the hack may not even be making the password visible. Ie, the process seems to be automated. I did find and remove the access for Yahoo mobile under the ‘Manage App and Website Connections’ link, figuring I could live without email on my phone. However, think I am still able get mail on my phone, so it may or may not help. *crossing my fingers*. May have to remove from phone completely if hack reoccurs.
ks // June 30th 2011
me too!!! ,… my was accessed (hacked) from Vietnam, … while i resides in Singapore
Briana // July 12th 2011
Would your only solution be to switch to Gmail? I have a personal Gmail and a Yahoo account for university emails..but I have preferred Yahoo till recently.
My account has been hacked four times within the past two months, but the only thing that has happened is they changed my password. My email hasn’t been used to send out any spam messages or anything, just a changed password.
My recent login activity hasn’t been too suspicious after I was hacked, Oregon the first time (I’m in Seattle,) then Washington DC and Germany (more suspicious), and today, California (not suspicious) and Virginia…suspicious considering they were logged in within an hour of each other. Can I warp across the country? No.
jl // July 12th 2011
Thanks so much for this post. I found the location (in the same city) of someone who hacked into Yahoo account. Reported it to Yahoo. May report to police also.
AJ Kohn // July 13th 2011
Briana,
Yes, I’m not sure why Yahoo! isn’t able to understand and prevent access when it is geographically unlikely or impossible, as with your California and Virginia situation.
I believe you can still use your Yahoo! account but you’ll need to make sure that you change your password, create your security questions and update all of your other Yahoo! products like Yahoo! Mobile or Yahoo! Messenger. From what I’ve seen they seem to be exploiting these services to gain access so having those be up-to-date and enabling all security measures on the same would be prudent.
Thanks for the comment and hope that helps.
AJ Kohn // July 13th 2011
Glad I could help Jl and good on you for taking action!
Annie S. // July 13th 2011
Ergh. I just joined the “I’ve been hacked” camp, after also having a Yahoo account forever. I also just noticed a lot of hacked accounts coming my way. Clearly Yahoo isn’t on top of this issue, so I think I’ll just delete the account and move on…..after I take your advice and let others know they were also hacked!
AJ Kohn // July 13th 2011
I’m sorry to hear that Annie. And yes, the number of hacked accounts coming my way has also increased.
It’s odd that Yahoo! isn’t keeping up on this since it is really easy to move your account to something like Gmail.
Ralf Muschall // July 13th 2011
Do you have any idea how it has been hacked? My (uneducated) guess would be that one of the many other mobile apps (which usually require unrestricted access to contacts, memory, internet and whatever in order to be able to run) had a security hole and was abused to send password data to the attacker.
Just a hint about the security questions that yahoo (and other services) offers for password recovery: Criminals usually know the answers about your childhood street name etc., probably better than yourself (you might forget, they don’t, or even have database access). What I do is to create questions like “first recovery password” and “second recovery password” and create fresh, strong passwords (as hard as those for everything else).
AJ Kohn // July 13th 2011
Ralf,
Yes, that’s my guess too, that there’s a hole in one of the mobile or messenger applications that allows password information to be harvested. It seems like that’s the pattern. As far as the security questions, you can go that route for full protection but I don’t think many hacks of this nature will go the extra step to track down street name or best man answers. It’s too much time and effort, particularly when they can just move on to another email account to abuse.
jl // July 13th 2011
I think messenger is my problem. I keep trying to sign out; couple of minutes later, I’m no longer signed out! Will report to Yahoo.
jl // July 13th 2011
P.S.
I discovered the default setting for Yahoo! Messenger on my smartphone was set at “always on”. This should not be the default setting! Also note that the more secure “https” is not a default setting for both Facebook and Twitter. You have to go into account settings and check “https”.
JC // July 15th 2011
Same thing happened to me today. . .
6:34 PM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Vietnam
6:34 PM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Vietnam
And I was in Oregon at the time. Never been to Vietnam!!
AJ Kohn // July 16th 2011
Jl,
Thank you for reporting this default setting. Hopefully others will take note and make the change to prevent potential hacks.
AJ Kohn // July 16th 2011
JC,
Sorry to hear about this and once again it’s a Mobile property from half-way across the world. Shocking that Yahoo! can’t figure this out. Make sure you check your Mobile version and settings if you continue to use it.
me // July 22nd 2011
Happened to me today and all the log ins were the same IP, and I do not own a mobile phone. I have an Ipad but I haven’t used it and I set up the Ipad to an email I created just for it.
So I don’t know what happened or why. I wish they would explain.
Geoff Halstead // July 26th 2011
Hi all,
Just had my Yahoo account hacked for the second time in as many months.
I only access it via iPad and MacBook on Wi-Fi from home.
I tried to change password but no luck with multiple attempts such that Yahoo froze we out for 24hours.
I will try one more time and if no luck, switch to someone else.
Pity that Yahoo have become so lax and useless on security.
Oh, I’ve had accounts with them for 12 years.
They seem to have lost their way in a big way!
Geoff
AJ Kohn // July 27th 2011
Geoff,
I’m sorry to hear about this, particularly since you’ve been hit twice in two months. Make sure to follow those links at the top to ensure you can reclaim your account. Also, are you only using Yahoo desktop or do you use Messenger or Mobile?
GeoffH // July 30th 2011
Hello AJ,
Thanks for response.
I only use desktop or iPad.
Haven’t tried to log into Yahoo to change yet as cancer treatment has floored me this time.
Will be back as soon as I have the mental energy to go through the log-in procedure again.
Geoff
J. // July 30th 2011
Hello,
I can’t access my yahoo account. The password seems to have been changed. My secondary e-mail address is my former work address which I no longer access (just get the messages forwarded). Even though I answered the first security question correctly, the answer to the second question (best man) is not accepted. I wonder if that got changed too? Now my account is locked for 12 hours. Is there any hope of recovering it? I have some very important information there…
JL // July 31st 2011
Been there, done that. Yahoo actually suspended my account and I couldn’t send emails. They stated someone was using my email address for spam. This was not a surprise since I had received several “Dear Customer” emails related to Epsilon accounts being hacked. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/04/epsilon-email-hack
Also despite the fact that I’m not an online gamer, I received a notice that my information had been changed at a game site and that I had subscribed to an iranian website. It took more than a month for me to change most of my yahoo email contacts since I’ve had the account for 10+ years.
Back to you. Below the log in section there should be a link to, “I can’t access my page.” That worked for me and I was able to access my account and changed my password. I now have a second yahoo account; only use it for newsletter emails. My important emails are on gmail which uses https. I also now use Firefox and Chrome which are browsers that have higher security ratings than Internet Explorer or Safari.
If you have problems after 12 hours, do a search for Yahoo! Help and you should be able to contact Yahoo that way. Make sure you read the earlier posted messages for additional security tips.
J. // August 01st 2011
Thank you very much JL. I managed to change my password this morning following the link “I can’t access my page.” This link did not work yesterday.
By the way, could you suggest how to get rid/block the Yahoo messenger, please? I suspect that is the problem since a while ago, upon logging into my yahoo account, I received a few notifications stating that I have been logged out of my Yahoo messenger since I logged in a different location. I do not use Yahoo messenger, so that was very strange. Now I know that it must have been hackers…
Also, where is the “View your recent Yahoo log in activity” link, please? I do not seem to be able o find it. Thank you very much!
JL // August 01st 2011
Hi J:
Unfortunately the last time I read the Yahoo Q&A regarding Messenger it seemed to indicate that you had to get rid of your email account if you wanted to get rid of Yahoo! Messenger. That’s why I have another Yahoo email address and several gmail email addresses so I can eventually get rid of the hacked address. I’ve:
– signed out of Yahoo! Messenger and made myself invisible to everyone.
– unchecked the box on my cell phone that had my Yahoo! Mobile account on 24/7
– disabled wifi and bluetooth on my smartphone and on my computer since I don’t use them (but hackers do), and
– put a password on my smartphone. It’s a pain since I have to punch in more digits before I make a call; don’t want to go through this time-consuming process again.
To get to the recent Yahoo! log in activity link, go to the upper left corner of the screen above Yahoo!Mail. There is an arrow to the right of your name. Click the arrow so the drop down menu with “Account” appears. In the Sign-In and Security Section , click on “View Your Recent Login Activity”.
Hope this helps!
J. // August 01st 2011
JL, Thank you very much. I am currently on vacation in Sweden and, after reviewing the login activity found out that somebody from Sweden was logging into my mail several times yesterday when I could not access my account. Scary… Thought it to be such a safe country.
JL // August 01st 2011
J–You’re welcome. Don’t blame the Swedes–could have been another tourist! Glad you were able to access your email. Make sure you use a mega secure password of 10 characters with upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols to make those hackers work hard the next time they want to gain access to your cyber property!
jr // August 03rd 2011
I got a message from Yahoo saying my e-mail account had been hacked and that I should change my password, which I did. Now I get a pop-up which says my browser cannot confirm my certificate. When I log on to my e-mail account everything seems to work as normal, except that the web address does not start with yahoo. I went to the Yahoo security site (sites actually, they are kind of a maze) and told them of the problem twice. The first time I was told they would get back to me within 24 hours. The second time I bypassed e-mail and went through their home page with a description of the problem. I got a long e-mail back that gave me some canned answers and asked me to click on from a list of other possible problems and to provide all my personal and password info. Obviously, no one at Yahoo is dealing with this problem yet.
JL // August 03rd 2011
@JR
Change your password to 10 digits consisting of lower and upper case letters, and symbols.
Try using a different browser such as Firefox or Chrome.
Let us know if this helps.
Briana // August 04th 2011
Hi again!
Just wanted to mention as an update that I think the mobile app has a big part in getting hacked. Either the mobile app or the chat itself.
I still can’t figure out how to disable the messenger, although I appear “offline” I can’t seem to log out of it. Once I did get a request for an IM from some suspicious-looking email and I blocked that person. But other than that, not much has happened with my Yahoo messenger.
However, I logged off of my mobile app on my android phone and uninstalled it, and for a while (a good few weeks) I had no incidents with my email. I decided to start using my iPod again for email, and for some reason thought it would be ok to sync it with my Yahoo email. Lo and behold, my email was compromised yet again, not long after that. I changed my passwords for the umpteenth time and disabled it on my iPod as well.
Fortunately I set up my linked gmail account to have a two-step verification for logging, through my cell phone number. Otherwise they would have changed my gmail password as well.
I wish Yahoo would at the very least allow the option of a similar two-step verification process. Its cumbersome, but worth it. Having to change my email password 10+ times within a couple months is completely ridiculous.
Thank you for all your help, and for all the other commenters, you helped me realize it is probably the mobile app doing the damage.
Brandon J. Clark // August 05th 2011
Yahoo! Messenger – Russia….. Thanks assholes….
Needless to say, I’ve canceled my PAID email account service (as if guilty Yahoo didn’t even ask why) and will be terminating it completely once I change over my whole life to something different.
What is this, the friggin 1980′s??!?!?! Am I going to have to go back and start running a mail server out of my laundry room?
AJ Kohn // August 06th 2011
Geoff,
No problem and all the best on your cancer treatment!
AJ Kohn // August 06th 2011
JL,
Thank you for being so responsive to the others here who have encountered Yahoo! Mail problems. I truly appreciate your comments and the positive community you are helping to build here.
AJ Kohn // August 06th 2011
Briana,
Thanks so much for this additional information. It’s helping the community at large understand the issues and potential vulnerabilities. From what I gather, there is some open exploit by having Messenger or Mobile. I’m guessing that having it on produces some open connection that can be hacked. Why Yahoo! doesn’t understand or fix this is beyond me.
AJ Kohn // August 06th 2011
Brandon,
Ugh. I’m sorry to hear this. It seems like such an easy thing to protect against! You can try the laundry room or … Gmail.
JL // August 06th 2011
Oy! Heads up on a Gmail feature–
Changed most of my Yahoo! email addresses to several in Gmail. Imagine my surprise when I was checking my sent folder and discovered that Gmail had automatically sent out emails to a company that I shop at, and was inviting them to chat with me! This despite the fact I had disabled chat! I was not happy. Here I am, literally spending weeks changing email accounts, passwords, IP addresses,and trying to keep my Gmail email addresses as private as possible and Gmail is using my name and email address to spam my contacts! To avoid this from happening, you have to opt out of auto-add suggested contacts. Go to Mail Settings|Chat|Auto-Add Suggested Contacts=> click on the setting for, “Only allow people that I’ve explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I’m online”. Mail Settings is located in the upper right hand corner–it’s the spoke symbol.
@AJ Kohn – you’re welcome. But I must say you started it all–misery loves company!
J Lamb
Etm // August 06th 2011
Add me to the list of hacked accounts. Luckily I don’t have very many contacts, so the damage was minimal. I delete all contacts and changed my password. Been a Yahoo user since 1998 and this is my first problem. At least I’m not alone.
MW // August 08th 2011
I was also hacked via yahoo mobile. what is it with this application that it is easily cracked?
AJ Kohn // August 08th 2011
Mark,
Sorry to hear, but you’re in good company! I wish I knew what it was that made Yahoo! mobile so vulnerable. I can only think that it’s some sort of open connection that can be compromised with relative ease.
AJ Kohn // August 08th 2011
Etm,
Sorry to hear you’ve joined this sad club. My experience was also the first bad one with Yahoo in nearly 10 years.
Jennah // August 10th 2011
Hi all, I just realized that my yahoo account has been hacked. As I was checking my e-mail, it said it could not view my email or I was signed out because I was logged on at a different address. It turns out that someone has been logging into my account since July…. from Virginia. I reside in New Jersey, and haven’t gone to VA for over 15 years. I am really upset about it as I have had this yahoo account for close to 10 years. Is there anything else to be done other than changing the password and security questions? Can we find out who tried hacking into my account and report it? Should I file a police report regarding this?
Thank you all!!!
AJ Kohn // August 12th 2011
Jennah,
Sorry to hear you’ve also gotten hacked. I wouldn’t spend much time trying to find the person or reporting it to the police. Just get your account safe again and either leave Yahoo! for another mail provider or complain loudly to Yahoo! to fix this very clear and dangerous problem. That’s my advice.
Lynn // August 12th 2011
Well my yahoo was hacked today. I don’t use messenger or the mobile app.
BTW, I tried to find the link to view my login history and it is no where to be found.
I did a search through the support thingy and still nothing comes up even remotely helpful. I can see where it thinks my location is which is wrong but I can’t see where my login history is. Any suggestions?
Bubba McFeinstein // August 13th 2011
Hacked here, as well. My password was definitely not strong enough. Not sure if that matters, but I am hopeful it does. (I have changed password to something far stringer now.)
Hacker purportedly logged in with mobile phone from Peru.
Originating IP address (could be forged) indicated in headers is in Indonesia.
I am suspicious that the hack came from a mobile phone.
My suspicion is that Yahoo indicates a login came from a mobile phone based on the URL through which a user was logging in.
I further suspect that the mobile login page is the vector, the more easily cracked entry point. Perhaps it allows unlimited attempts, making brute force attack easier. perhaps it is something else. Perhaps I’m guessing wrong.
What I’m saying is that I don’t believe that the hacker used a mobile phone in Peru just because Yahoo indicates my account was logged into from a mobile phone in Peru.
Chris // August 15th 2011
I had the same problem just today. Somebody from Venezuela hacked into my yahoo mail around 1:36am and sent out crappy emails to my contacts and some of the people on my sent list. From the looks of messages on here, yahoo should’ve fixed this by now.
Well, after 10yrs, I’ve decided to switch my personal email to gmail from yahoo. They seem alot stringent with security.
heather // August 18th 2011
Ahoy! I’m joining the club. Been with yahoo forever and my email was cracked yesterday from the Ukraine. I live in the US. Never been out of the country. Yahoo knows my primary locations… and did nothing.
They send out a bunch of lame emails. I caught it an hour after the fact and changed my password. My login history was “YMessenger Authentication– Ukraine”. Hmmm, I don’t have the ymessenger program installed. I had it logged off on my email when the crack happened. Odd.
What I do have is a smart phone and the mobile phone app. Never had any problem with my email being compromised till now. This is seriously making me consider gmail. It would very tedious to switch over all my associated accounts but it’s probably worth it at this point.
My password was over 10 digits with letters and numbers. Ran virus and malware scans on both computers I use: Nada. Changed password and security questions. Went into accounts to manage website and app connections. Removed ymessenger and widgets. I’m thinking of removing mobile mainly because I feel like it might be the cause. Can’t figure out how this occurred: My fiance had it happen to him a couple of months ago. Also a long time yahoo user. His password was strong, he uses a mac. No smart phone.
Mark S // August 21st 2011
Me too. Have just been hacked after many problem-free years of Yahoo usage. The log said the hacker was from Romania.
I use a windows laptop and desktop for Yahoo browser access, plus my iPhone’s email app. Don’t use Yahoo Mobile. Have scanned both PCs with numerous anti-malware including the Kaspersky full suite, and nothing reported. My password is a series of random alpha keystrokes and a few numbers, so pretty strong.
It’s interesting, but maybe coincidental, that i was using free wifi in a bar i’ve never been to before for around an hour when the hack happened.
The Yahoo agent I ‘chatted’ to suggested it could be a dodgy URL that I may have clicked, but god knows how that could expose my credentials.
It’s worrying that no-one here so far has come close to suggesting how the hackers are doing this. I work in IT for an investment bank, so am fairly well clued up, but am still in the dark on this
AJ Kohn // August 24th 2011
Lynn,
Sorry to hear you were hacked. The link to your login history can be found by going to Account Info. You’ll be asked to verify your password. Then you’ll see the Account Info page. The ‘View your recent login history’ link should be the last link under the ‘Sign-In and Security’ section.
AJ Kohn // August 24th 2011
Bubba,
Sorry you were hacked. And once again it’s a mobile login from half way around the world! I’m not sure exactly how they’re doing it, though you bring up some good points. I just know that mobile does seem to be the vector.
AJ Kohn // August 24th 2011
Sorry to hear about this Chris. It’s amazing that Yahoo! hasn’t figured out a way to fix this security breach. It’s clearly an issue and the comments make me believe that Gmail is picking up a lot of subscribers because of the security issue.
AJ Kohn // August 24th 2011
Welcome to the club. Misery loves company!
Sounds sadly familiar. You’re also helping to confirm that this is not about having a ‘bad’ password. It seems far more likely that there is some exploit that allows hackers to crack passwords with brute force via mobile or messenger platforms.
I maintain accounts on both Yahoo and Gmail, but made it a priority to conduct all of my business on Gmail for this reason.
AJ Kohn // August 24th 2011
Mark,
Sorry to hear this but, again, you are confirming that a ‘bad’ password is not the issue here. I also find the ‘dodgy URL’ explanation to be lame and specious. That’s not it.
I think there’s a very clear pattern here surrounding Mobile and Messenger that Yahoo! could easily investigate. In the interim, I still find it shocking that Yahoo! can’t simply employ a geographic security measure. The fact that they haven’t is revealing and sad.
ETM // August 24th 2011
Wanted to say thanks to AJ for keeping these blog comments active. Each time I read another story, I feel a little better that I didn’t screw up some how. I like consider myself pretty web savvy, so to get hacked by a spammer like this sort of had me surprised. Seems like a lot of other savvy, longtime Yahoo users are in the same boat and that reinforces to me that the vulnerability is on Yahoo’s end with signs pointing to Yahoo Mobile.
ALM // August 30th 2011
Friends from Germany called at 4 am this morning to say they had received an email from my Yahoo account about how I had been robbed at gun point in Spain. I assured them I was safe and recently asleep in the Bay Area : )
The login activity shows the hacker is in Nigeria. I haven’t used Yahoo Mobile or Messenger and am pretty sure I’ve not clicked a “dodgy URL.” The hacker deleted all my sent email back to April, so I have no way of tracking what was sent.
Most disturbing, the hacker created a new Yahoo account that looks identical to mine except it has an extra letter. The hacker used this new account in the reply-to line of the email sent from my account. Creepy.
JL // August 30th 2011
Here are guidelines from Twitter if your account has been compromised. Some apply to email accounts.
https://support.twitter.com/articles/31796-my-account-has-been-compromised
I for one have completed deleted Yahoo! Mobile/Messenger from my cell phone and have signed off of Yahoo! Chat on my computer. Unfortunately you can’t disable Yahoo! Chat. All my important emails are on Gmail. Will soon be transferring all my contacts to my Gmail account. Other security measures:
Social Media Risky Default Settings:
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/08/18/10-risky-default-settings-in-social-media-that-you-need-to-check/
How to Remove Yourself from People Search Websites:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/how-to-remove-yourself-from-people-search-websites/612?tag=mantle_skin;content
AJ Kohn // September 02nd 2011
ETM,
Thank you for the kinds words. And it’s comforting to me as well, knowing that I hadn’t done something boneheaded. The stories here all point to a vulnerability of some sort that does not, in my opinion, reside with the user. Far too often that’s the first line of customer support boiler plate. Fob it off on user error. Not so in this case.
AJ Kohn // September 02nd 2011
ALM,
Creepy indeed! But like I found out, you’ve got good friends who were concerned for your safety. So there’s a bit of a silver lining. That said, it’s sad that this vulnerability hasn’t been addressed.
Seth // September 02nd 2011
I know I’m not alone here, but it’s been 2 months since I’ve been able to access my Yahoo email account which I’ve had for over 15 years. They literally will not respond to any of my inquiries concerning this. I hated to lose years worth of emails including products I’ve purchased online, etc. I’ve finally decided that it’s a lost cause so I’ve made sure to change all my other online accounts that use this email and of course minimize my usage of all Yahoo services in the future. My best advice to anyone else that has this happen is not waste any time with Yahoo support and move on to finding another email service (Gmail operates like a well-oiled machine compared to Yahoo). I still have to wonder how many customers Yahoo will lose before they start caring!
kaniska // September 05th 2011
my yahoo account hack some one he or she change my password and sequerity qiestion i use yahoo massemger and i always save my password help me
JL // September 06th 2011
Kanisha
Get in contact with Yahoo! Customer Care and tell them someone hacked into your account. If you can’t log in there is a help button at the bottom of the Yahoo! home screen. There is a “Contact Us” section on top once you get to the help page.
Once you get back in, do not save your password. Look at all the previous posts for recommendations on improved security.
JL // September 06th 2011
@Kaniska
Sorry for misspelling your name!
Will Woodlief // September 10th 2011
I used yahoo mail for 9 years, but went totally over to gmail when both my current yahoo account, and a yahoo account I had not used for over five years, both started sending out spam to people on my contact lists. The fact that I had not used the older email account suggested to me that yahoo’s computer’s somehow lost the information… something I could not prove, but my surfings on the web has raised hints to me that there was some major stealing of data from yahoo over time. Does anyone have any leads or information about this?
Karen // September 10th 2011
Our Yahoo account, which we use for a small business was hacked into yesterday morning, about 30 mins. before I logged on, all contacts are gone, all emails are gone, saw 2 log-ins from Ca. and 2 from Va., we are in NM. Spam was sent from our email saying we were robbed in Scotland, etc., the usual.
I changed the password, filed reports, etc., today I got an email for Yahoo saying my mail was restored – NOT!
Still using our other/ personal, yahoo email for the time being, seriously considering starting over with another business email account.
Has any one ever had their email or contacts restored by Yahoo?
Is gmail truly better?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Christina // September 11th 2011
So far I have NEVER had any problem with Yahoo.
Yahoo has always been my my ‘second home’ ever since I became ‘computer conscious’ in the year 2000.
Did notice a common denominator with the hacking, tho’ – all those hacked have a mobile phone.
I have a hearing ‘deficit’ & don’t have a mobile phone.
Have been with Yahoo so long now I would find it hard to make a shift!
NS // September 11th 2011
oh my God i cant beleieve this has hapened to so many ppl! what a shame! my account said it was being accessed from australia, but when i searched for the ip address it showed india !! :S
what i dont get is – if ppl have hacked into an account how come they havent changed the password ?? which is good for me but just wondering whats the purpose of hacking!
btw my account was accesed from australia 4 times in a day !!!!!
Karen // September 12th 2011
Christina – I posted the comment above you and I don’t have a mobile phone.
Will Woodlief // September 12th 2011
My unused account that I told about above had its contact list used, but was never connected to a mobile phone.
Stone L // September 13th 2011
The Yahoo corporation business saga is playing out in the news and clearly the leadership of the company has made actual users and customers a low priority. Perhaps there is more money to be made by providing a platform that is designed to be hacked. Dont always assume that people will be doing the obvious right thing to protect their customers.
Will Woodlief // September 15th 2011
While it could be true that Yahoo did this deliberately, I would prefer to think of another scenario: corporate incompetence. In my opinion,the software and email seems sloppy, and too big to fix easily or cheaply. There can’t be that much money to make in web based email, and from my few years experience designing software, I would like to hazard a guess that it would cost far more to fix yahoo mail than the income stream coming in. Better to deal with insecure email than loose money?? Probably in the past, they started up a quick set of insecure scripts to do email, and then kept expanding it, not wanting to spend the money on fixing it….
My bet would be shoddy work on the middle management level years ago, covered up by an upper management that prefers income to fixing it. And it is hard for me to find an organized group of yahoo customers demanding change. Just a lot of burned little guys, like me.
Will Woodlief // September 15th 2011
So I guess what I meant was yahoo mail is irretrievably broken, and the Yahoo management would rather keep this thing running than shut it down. The real story to me is a lack of organized opposition to Yahoo mail, unless one exists and I do not know about it?
oscar // September 17th 2011
Thank god for this article! For over a week my address has been sending out emails to my contact list even after I tried virus scans, deleting cookies, and all the obvious solutions. I was hacked from Romania and Croatia……today alone! Hopefully taking the steps described will solve it. Its hard to believe that Yahoo isnt taking this seriously………..seriously!!
Stella // September 19th 2011
As I see I’m one of many that had their yahoo e-mail hacked first time after 13 years!! first I noticed that someone send e-mails to all my contacts, I changed password, today saw that some more e-mail were sent, I live in Greece and someone was logged by mobile by Dominican Rebublic! I tried to change my password, but when I tried to log in new password didn’t work, first security question correct, second question not correct? how is that even possible? hacker changed it? the matter is that the second e-mail that I had registered, is no longer valid and now I’m locked for 12hrs. Will I be able to access my account again? the only thing I want is to retain some friends’ e-mails and deactivate the hacked account..
Karen // September 19th 2011
To Stella -
I got my contacts back, but it wasn’t easy and it took a week.
You’ll need to call them and file a report at least once day,
866-562-7219 then go with 1- billing/accounts, it is the only option that puts you through to a human being. Insist they walk you thru the forms, and get you back into your account, they will. Do this everyday till you get a result, it took me 5 business days, I got all contacts back, but they could not retrieve my saved emails.
I switched to gmail.
Stella // September 19th 2011
Thank you Karen, it looks like yahoo is very busy with all these spamers and all those seeking assistance.. I switched to gmail as well, thankfully had no important contacts in my yahoo e-mail and right now the only thing I want is to deactivate my spamed account..friends are texting me saying “how are you? by the way you got major spam!” RIP yahoo e-mail…
bobqw // September 21st 2011
if your concerned with details on IP address location, copy and paste these login activites to notepad. it will show you all their addresses. happy securing =)
Allie // September 23rd 2011
I was hacked yesterday and wasn’t told about it until today by one of my friends who received the (creepy) email spam my account sent. I checked out the “recent activity log” and yesterday someone logged in from my mobile phone in Czech Republic (I am in California and my phone has never left my side!) This is really bad that Yahoo! didn’t catch this and I am strongly considering moving over my email service to another provider.. thoughts?
jochro // September 24th 2011
Same thing as everyone else is saying. I have had yahoo for like 15 years, and yesterday morning my email started sending out emails to everyone in my address book. If I look in my login history, there was a login the same time as the emails were sent via Yahoo Mobile from Armenia. I do have a smart phone, how do I know what has been compromised (a computer, or my phone)?
What steps should I follow beyond changing my email password (and security questions) and running virus scans on my PC?
Do I do anything to my smart phone? Delete apps? Runs scans somehow on my phone?
JL // September 25th 2011
Don’t know how much this helps, but I now have a password for my smartphone. It’s a pain having to punch it in before I call a number; better safe than sorry.
John // October 05th 2011
I’m joining the hacked ranks. After years with Yahoo (technically started with GeoCities), I decided to shift over to Gmail last year because I was concerned with security. I still use that account for fantasy sports, but now I think I’m just going to kill it completely after football season’s done. When I checked my log in activity, like everyone else, it said it was Romania, Brazil, and New Jersey. The first 2 were through messenger like everyone else’s foreign ones, but the Jersey one was mail access, which bothered me. So I’ve reset my password and I’ve reminded my contacts to pretty much ignore any email from that account.
I do wonder if this is related to Yahoo’s “improved” mail service. Before they forced everyone to switch over to the new interface, I don’t think there were as many hacked reports. Since then, it seems like it’s increased significantly.
AJ Kohn // October 05th 2011
John,
Sorry to hear you joined our club. The mail access one would freak me out as well. In what time frame did it all happen? Maybe the Jersey log in was a latter step in the process.
I’ve thought about the idea that it’s linked to the ‘improved’ mail service. There might be something there. I had already been using the beta when I was hacked so … perhaps the new service wasn’t probed well enough from a security perspective. Either way, it’s sad that Yahoo! hasn’t addressed this yet when the exploit seems rather straight forward.
John // October 05th 2011
The Jersey entry happened the last week of September (29th if I remember right), and the messenger entries happened early this morning. What’s particularly interesting to me is that the password I use is one that’s very strong and I use my user name (with the occasional, easily recognizable, variations) on quite a few sites, but I haven’t had any issues with the others being compromised so far, knock on wood. I also ran a malware check on my home desktop and there were no anomalies. And oddly enough, when I checked my virus scanner’s logs, it had run a full scan Monday night, and I hadn’t used my desktop in between then and this morning. So that’s clean.
One thing I also noticed just now, is that, on a lark, I went to log in to the Yahoo account to check the activity log. Lo and behold, my recent check in is listed as Jersey. I’m currently in Minnesota. So Yahoo’s not listing IP locations accurately. There’s still a problem with the spam emails obviously, but to me, this seems to point to holes in the messenger and mobile apps.
stephen // October 07th 2011
Anyone know if the hackers are accessing the emails, notes, etc in the account? I had some private information in my notepad and it scares me to think they’re using it.
All I did was:
- change my yahoo password
- remove Yahoo Mobile access
- added a Yahoo sign-in seal
- deleted the private notes in notepad
Anything else I should do?
Thanks
Sera // October 07th 2011
I believe there is a security hole in Yahoo messenger / Mobile authentication which allows hackers to send spam emails. They don’t have the password but somehow able to trick yahoo servers. Someone sent spam emails via my wife’s yahoo account. Login history page showed “Yahoo Messenger” authentication from Malaysia and email header showed it was sent via androidmobile app. Password changed and login set to expire every day.
Scott // October 08th 2011
Yesterday my long time trouble free Yahoo account was accessed via Yahoo messenger from Hong Kong. I live in Idaho. Several people in my address book received an email with attachments from me which I did not send. I caught the problem pretty quickly when I noticed my inbox suddenly had 10 emails in a matter of minutes. Several returned emails (old contacts). I send out a email warning everyone about the fake email and began to run some virus scan software with nothing found on my computer. I found this site and can now breath easier knowing what happened.
It seems this problem is wide spread and Yahoo should fix it!
Annie Danny // October 08th 2011
I’m using yahoo mail I’m living in singapore and someone logged in from south africa never been there… I got phone calks saying all scum emails were sent from my emails … I generally check my email from iPhone but surprisingly my laptop yahoo has different they got sent the scum emails I haven’t used my laptop to check my mail for months… When I look in my sent folder I have no clue what scum is sent … It’s when I received phone calls from friends and mailer demon I figured out… Please advice is my iPhone compromised or my lap… I changed my password, and checked my primary email, changed security question , added login seal…!! Anything else?? Plz advice
gary schafer // October 09th 2011
my inbox is cleaned out. at first the log says it was unknown. then multiple log ins from nigeria. this id theft made easy. yahoo is criminally irresponsible
all my contacts get begging emails” i write this with tears in my eyes………..i was robbed i need your financilllllly asistance”(sic)
i will dump this worthless bunch of fools.
then i have the awful task of transferring what few friends i have left to a new service. go broke yahoo. and do the world a favor.
Dan Canham // October 10th 2011
Had yahoo for well over 10 years. I put up with all the spam and genuine emails from people replying to me going into spam. Today though having my UK email accessed by a mobile in turkey and spam sent to my contacts is something I can’t ignore. One person was going to give me a reference. I think it is time to leave yahoo.
oscar // October 10th 2011
I was hacked and posted a comment just over a month ago. After changing my password, I haven’t had anymore issues. However after doing some more digging, I have a question. Does everyone here had a mobile phone with the Android system? There is an app called “HTC LOGGERs” that stores sensitive information, including passwords according to one article, and it is supposed to be extremely easy to hack. Anyone else hear of this?
Will Woodlief // October 10th 2011
I had an android phone, but I had two accounts hacked at the same time, one was an inactive account that I had stopped using ten years ago and even forgot about and was never on my phone. I thought inactive accounts were gone, but apparently that address book still was able to be hacked into and used to send spam. Both accounts were hacked at the same time.
M.Tolga YURTCAN // October 12th 2011
I am hacked to login from INDIA. I have android tablet and phone but I have not used yahoo in them. last login to yahoo account was mounts old. I believe they have another method.
No one // October 14th 2011
Just got hacked from Japan. Second time this year this has happened.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Stephen,
I don’t think that the hackers are looking for that type of private information. From what I can tell these are just ways to generate free emails and clicks with the hope that a few wind up converting. Because it’s all free, all it takes is one or two people to buy and it pays off. So, you’ve taken all the steps I would take to secure the account and I’m 99% sure your notepad information was not compromised.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Sera,
Really!? Now that is very interesting and would explain why even some very effective passwords have been ‘cracked’ or how those who didn’t fall for the normal phishing attempts could have been compromised. But again we’re looking at a hole in the Messenger / Mobile platform that essentially allows a log-in without the password. In some ways, that’s worse.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Scott,
Yes, unfortunately you’re joining a growing group of people who have been compromised in this way. I’m certain this has nothing to do with the actions we’ve taken. It’s a problem with Yahoo security and, yes, they should fix it.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Annie,
I think you’ve taken all the necessary steps at this point and that should keep you safe no matter whether you’re on the iPhone or laptop.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Gary,
It is a shame that Yahoo seems unconcerned about this issue. I don’t blame anyone for moving to another service.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Dan,
Sorry to hear you’ve joined our ranks. You provide another point in a rising tide of evidence in a gaping hole in Yahoo Mobile / Messenger. I still use Yahoo as a legacy account but the majority of my email is now conducted via Gmail.
AJ Kohn // October 14th 2011
Oscar,
I haven’t heard about that app. But I don’t have Android, at least not yet.
Sam // October 15th 2011
Somehow someone in South Korea got my yahoo credentials when I was there this past summer. They apparently started using my yahoo email account as their ID on some gaming sites and started using my name as well. They somehow got my credit card information and I started getting random charges from iTunes Luxembourg S.r.l. I called my credit card company and they sent me a new card. I subsequently changed all my passwords and thought it should be okay. Last week I got a call from my credit card company’s fraud alert department alerting me that someone was trying to make charges for Expedia and some hotel. I have no idea how they got all this information, but I have a strong suspicion it was from my sister’s mobile phone that she had just set up. From there they were able to hack my iTunes account which had my credit card information stored. So if you had your email hacked, make sure you change your passwords on all other online accounts linked to your email.
Steve // October 15th 2011
somone hacked my account from poland at 4.17am today when i was in deep sleep in Canada. s/he sent embrressing mail with virus link to all of my address book id. i changed my password. i want to block his/her ip address not to login my account again( if s/he hacked again). Yahoo has only spam mail block option but doesn’t have log in block option. can any one please help me how to block an ip address to log in my yahoo ID.
iame // October 16th 2011
I wonder what’s the point in submitting your mobile number for security reasons, if anyone who hacks your account can change the number?
Irina // October 16th 2011
Hello,
My Yahoo account was hacked today, the best part is that my contact list was so old due to the fact that I never use it or update it, that most of the emails bounced right back. That’s how I noticed it.
I changed every password I could think of, made sure that they did not set up message forwarding to their address. The location in the Yahoo log file was Jordan.
I really hate this, I feel that my privacy has been violated to an almost unbearable degree.
I’ll check the next days and weeks whether the creep has stopped messing with my account.
Michael N. // October 17th 2011
Wow – great post very useful – helped me to found out from where my Yahoo Email was hacked last Thursday: POLAND.
This is indeed very embarrassing situation – especially when you use your account for professional communication or for recruitment opportunities. Anyway, as you pointed out some people took the time to email / tweet me about it.
In the past, I have seen this happening to few friends and someone else I know got her account hacked yesterday.
Reading the numerous comments and based on own experience, this makes me seriously considering moving away to another service. Especially when ready the Yahoo could do much more then they do – very basic checks as explained.
Thanks again for the useful post and comments from readers.
Cheers,
Michael (from little Belgium)
Stella // October 17th 2011
Yeah – I can join the club. Always considered myself a diligent internet user. The hints here were great. Figured out that my account was accessed from UK mobile account. Thankfully some friends told me right away about receiving spam. I deleted all my contacts, changed my password and deleted very personal mail that i had saved. I will certainly move away from yahoo, just not sure where to?!
Good luck to everyone out there.
Allan // October 19th 2011
Yeah, Yahoo is the worst for email security. Gmail is a bit better. My startup is trying to solve this challenge and stop the hackers from getting into our web-based email accounts. One of the popular tricks hackers use to break into an account is they would do a reverse lookup on your email to get the personal info. Then they will reset your password by answering trivial questions about you.
Sera // October 20th 2011
I have another thoery. When you you login to yahoo webmail or yahoo messenger there is an option to keep you logged in or save password (messenger). login authentication information is stored in session cookies. If someone gets access to session cookie they can login without having password. It is possible to steal session cookies via webpage scripts.
To safeguard do not save password or check remember me option. Logout or exit browser when done with email.
Judy C. // October 20th 2011
It does absolutely no good for me to keep changing my Yahoo password and sign in seal and security questions (which are very strong), my Yahoo login log still shows me signing in from other states, and the sign in times are the exact times that I am logging in. I am in AZ and they show either Denver, CO or MT. Yahoo customer care gives me the same canned answers and reassures me my account is secure after changing my pw and security qs and sign in seal. NOT!
Also I am not connected to chat nor is my mobile phone in anyway connected to my Yahoo account. So that is not the route.
I usually know I have been hacked when I suddenly get a message that I have been disconnected from Chat (which I do not use) because I have logged in from a remote device (not me). Or I go in and attempt to click on my personal emails that I know who they are from, and all I get is an ad opening up. When I change my password and go back in, I can then open up these emails normally.
I am not really seeing any solutions here as to what to do to stop the redirecting of my yahoo and yahoomail log in from another state. This problem persists frequently, at least 2 or 3 times a month. I just found out how to go into the login file on ymail two days ago, and then that is how I found out about the other states login. What can a person really do to fix this?
John // October 20th 2011
Judy,
I wouldn’t put too much stock into the locations of the log ins. It looks like Yahoo isn’t reporting them correctly, based on my experience I mentioned above. What seems to be the point of access is the apps connected to Yahoo (Messenger and mobile access), regardless of whether you use them or not.
I would do 2 things. First, I would take Sera’s suggestion and logout/not save your password for every log in. It’s a bit of a hassle, but I think her theory along with the holes in the apps is part of the problem. Second, I would disable any apps connected to Yahoo that you don’t use. Go to Account Info –> Manage Apps and Website Connections. That should, in theory, cut down on access to your account.
Judy // October 20th 2011
I always log out every time and i never ever save any password on any site. I will check out the disabling apps area. Thanks for the advice. It is funny how all the logs in coincide with the times I log in, and most all from Colorado. Could it be that my server is somehow hooked up to Colorado? Except that does not explain the Montana logs from two days ago.
JL // October 21st 2011
What has worked for me:
– Removed Yahoo! Messenger from the programs on my smartphone.
– Have a password for my smartphone. Yes it’s a hassle to have to use it for every call but better safe than sorry.
– Have complex Yahoo! password. My Yahoo password is so complex, every time I use it I have to refer to its written form before I type it in. It’s mostly characters. Alpha and numeric passwords are too easy to crack.
– No longer use Yahoo! for important emails.
– Have placed a fraud alert with the credit reporting agencies to protect my credit. Just this week I received a letter from a retailer that someone had tried to open an account using my name.
AJ Kohn // October 24th 2011
Sera,
This is a very interesting theory. I hadn’t thought about cookie hijacking but that’s a definite possibility.
nic // October 25th 2011
This has now happened to me too – via messenger (a service I never use)
I didn’t have any apps enabled.
This time the login was from Uruguay! (Perhaps the hackers are just going down the alphabet of countries?)
The session cookie sounds like the most likely culprit!
Dorian // October 27th 2011
My wifes yahoo was hacked last night from the phillipeans. We only realized because of the old contacts it used caused a lot of email bounces. I can see the sent messages, 4 of them from a login at 1:26am, but can only see the sent from the yahoo webmail. They weren’t sent from our computer, thankfully. It appears sent via a mobile connection. Changed password this morning, but it’s additionally difficult as it’s linked to our at&t account since they don’t use their own email but outsourced it to yahoo.
Roberta Mary Ladieu // October 27th 2011
I didn’t have access to my yahoomail since Oct.13,I finally got a phone number for yahoo help…866-562-7219, if you want to talk to a person stay on the line, otherwise they just direct you to yahoo help site.So now I am un-easy to log in cause my security seal is not there and they said DON”T sign in unless you see your seal, so what’s a person supposed to do?Any answers will be greatly appreciated.
Pretty // October 27th 2011
I reside in Australia and my yahoo mail was hacked from POLAND too. I was notified by a known that it had happended. Yahoo was useless. I contacted their Australia direct line and a voice mail asked me to email. That was terrible, as I could not email them as I was at work and they restrict us from using personal email id’s. The hack said Yahoo Mobile when I checked my login activity.
The scam mail stating stupid websites was sent to my contact list which also included my friends from previous companies.
Yahoo in all was useless. I did read this web page and changed my password as soon as possible. Hope yahoo could do something to protect the security of their network.
Jonny // October 30th 2011
My wife’s Yahoo account was also hacked through Y! Messenger. Some were logged in from Ivory Coast, France and Malaysia. She uses an HTC phone and I’ve also been reading about an HTC security exploit on Android phones. Do a lot of people around here use HTC phones? If so it sounds like the fault might not be Yahoo’s. If a hacker can grab the password off the phone there really isn’t very much Yahoo can do about that.
berry // November 02nd 2011
Do anyone here know how to stop hacker-who can track other’s all conversations by her yahoo id( not with her password in id)?
if you know, please help me because have one-he told me he can track my all conversations with my friends..just by my yahoo messenger id.
Thanks so much with your help!
Mark // November 02nd 2011
Since this problem is happening to Hotmail, AOL and Gmail accounts as well, I suspect that most of the hacking is happening due to password re-use. Many people use the same email and password to login into different web sites. For example, if you use the same email and password combination to login to abcgreetingcards.com AND Yahoo – if abcgreetingcards.com has their user database hacked, the hackers simply try using that login info on Yahoo.
D // November 03rd 2011
add me to the list of people being hacked 1 hr ago.
when i went to sent box though there’s nothing there so mayb eit’s deleting it’s tracks.
AJ Kohn // November 04th 2011
Mark,
I don’t think this is a password re-use issue. Too many accounts have been hacked with strong and unique passwords to make me believe this is just a user problem. The two leading theories in my mind are an exploit in the mobile/messenger universe or cookie hijack.
John in MA // November 07th 2011
Yahoo account hacked a week ago..strange emails sent out to one of my friends. We compared notes yesterday and realized I had not sent out these messages. No record in the ‘sent box’ or trash. Activity log traced to an unknown IP address in US. Very specific and explicit so someone gained access and targeted a contact. Changed password. Might have been a breach via my Driod but who knows..first time this has ever happened.
Alexandros // November 11th 2011
add me to the list – I started seeing emails being sent from me to me plus my contacts… there are WAY too many people here with the same problem for this not to be a systemic issue. I noticed some binary in “my” recent messenger conversations, so the possibility of a messenger hack definitely seems plausible.
Chris // November 12th 2011
Well I am now adding my name to the list! I was hacked on my yahoo email account yesterday! nearly 9 years in of fault free problems but now this! I must say my password was not to break and yes from time to time I access my mail from a phone but hey I should be able to do that and not be hacked!
I have run a full virus check and come up with nothing! I am going to move over to g mail the only problem is I will have to transfer all my Amazon, iTunes and bank accounts which is a lot of hassle!
Djo // November 14th 2011
Also get hacked
I’m pretty sure it is related to the Yahoo Mail Android application, because it was the first time i had to store my Yahoo password to connect.
Just installed it 3 days ago … and removed it today !
Application removed, password changed, yahoo informed.
Wait&See
Tom // November 15th 2011
My account has been hacked today too.
Recent log in attempts show an IP address from Poland, Access Type Yahoo Mobile. All my contacts have been sent emails. I don’t have the yahoo mail app.
Sort it out Yahoo!
Ahuva // November 15th 2011
My account has been hacked today too!
Since my page is in Portuguese, I don’t know where to find the recent activities and check from where it was logged in.
I had friends calling the whole day, since the message in the email (very badly google translated) was calling for help and money. Very embarassing. I manage to change the password, but lost all my contacts!!!!
What do I do and how can I inform Yahoo, besides moving my account to gmail? Ahuva
.
Nigel // November 16th 2011
I am yet another person who has had yahoo account hacked!
My problem is that my account was hacked by a so called friend, he also hacked my bank accounts and stole money! In the process of hacking my account he changed all my security questions. I have been in contact with yahoo via a live agent. Unfortunately I have been unable to re-gain access to my account as I am unable to answer the changed security questions! I have explained to yahoo that these have been changed but I just get the answer of them following policy’s.
My e-mail address is important as I have contacts from all over the world and now can not contact them. Needless to say I have not been able to get any information from the so-called friend who hacked my account even after he was prosecuted for hacking my bank details and stealing money!
Any suggestions as to how I can get my account back would be gratefully received.
Thanks in advance.
Nigel.
Carla // November 16th 2011
I had my account hacked today, dont think is related to droid apps since I never used it on a mobile, yet the illegal access was from colombia and from “yahoo mobile” service, they sent spam mail to all the contacts on my address book. Not sure how they got my password but I’m doing a full scan and didnt find anything conclusive yet
Withnail // November 17th 2011
This is such a helpful piece, so can I offer my congrats to all? Really good to find this after I too joined the club this morning.
I’m in the UK and was actually online AND signed in to Yahoo this morning, when all of a sudden I get a load of “message failure” type emails in my inbox. Sure enough, I’d been hacked from the other side of the world, Sri Lanka for me. Turns out it was through my Yahoo Messenger, which I don’t even use.
Absolutely have to ask why they didn’t run in to security questions as I was both signed in here in Nottingham and have never been to Sri Lanka. My first panic was over a possible Trojan, so in comparison this is pretty tame, but I can’t help but feel a little violated.
Plenty of password changes ahead, methinks.
AJ Kohn // November 17th 2011
Nigel,
Wow, that’s a hack of a different sort! Did you file a police report or anything of that nature? If you have some official document that details the crime you might be able to convince Yahoo! to take the appropriate actions.
Bill. // November 18th 2011
This is a great thread, one of the best I could find discussing this topic. I was hijacked last week, the second time after once about two years ago. I have also received spam emails from other friends who have been hijacked for a couple years. This thread is the first info that provides clear lead to what actually has been going on.
Looking up my login activity, I found four logins over a two-day span, two listing Colombia, two listing Japan, all through Yahoo! Mobile. I do use the iPad2 mail app with Yahoo as the default mail program, rather than my work GMail account.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that Yahoo appears to have at least, kinda, sorta, addressed the problem, because I received an error message that my account login had been compromised and requiring me to reset my password. It did let me do a successful reset, and the spamming stopped.
Thanks for the info, this has been a big help.
AJ Kohn // November 18th 2011
Bill,
I’m glad the thread was helpful, am sorry to hear you’ve been compromised and very much appreciate the news that Yahoo! might be identifying these instances proactively. That would be good news, particularly since your situation mirrors those of so many others here. Thanks again and all the best.
Cait // November 19th 2011
You can close your account here
http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_ACCT&id=SLN2044
Teri // November 22nd 2011
Does anyone know how to actually get in touch with Yahoo? I have tried to go through Customer Care with no luck, I received a generated message. I recently ended a long term relationship and didn’t think about changing my passwords on Yahoo, Hotmail and Facebook till a few days after. Unfortunately, I think my ex-boyfriend had been “monitoring” my online activity for a while. (I’m clueless, I didn’t realize you could go to the menu and find a “saved” password until I forgot one of mine and he found it for me……my heart dropped because he basically lived with me, so I’m sure he was always in my accounts.) Anyway, I have been getting TONS of emails stating I have requested a password change/reset when I haven’t. I finally found where you could view your activity log on Yahoo and BAM! I live in IL, he lives in WI…..on Sat I was in KS and there was activity on my acct in WI….go figure!!! Is there any way to get a copy of my activity log for the past few months. I didn’t get a chance to copy the IP and now, it’s gone…..I NEED to get in touch with Yahoo customer service!!!!
Thanks!
William in Menlo Park // November 23rd 2011
Folks, this is an “inside job”. The hackers have found a backdoor into Yahoo’s servers. They are not guessing your passwords or sniffing packets on mobile networks or stealing cookies. Once they are inside the servers as super users they can do anything they want: primarily search for accounts that have juicy address books and spam those addresses with phishing mail.
They could even have installed code that runs at the time you set a new password, to record the one you just entered. But they probably don’t need to bother with that since they can fiddle all this without logging in with YOUR name/password. (Their backdoor has it’s own password.)
The culprits could either be hackers who penetrated via their own means. Or perhaps more likely: one of the hundreds of Yahoo programmers fired in layoffs was looking for a neat way to backstab the company and gave out the details on hacker nets.
Only solution: get yourself out of Yahoo-land ASAP. If you need to, maintain a minimal forwarding account to GMail. I unfortunately use Yahoo Discussion Group services, so will have to keep my account for that access. But I’ve used GMail for my primary mailboxes for years. Let’s pray this never happens to GMail.
Steve // November 23rd 2011
Well – it was interesting to find this site.
Again, a long time yahoo user for mucho years who just got hacked. Appreciate that it seems yahoo has taken a turn for the worse and there are others in the same boat I’m in.
I can not find login activity as a ATT Uverse Yahoo user. Technical support said there was no way to do that and I could find nothing in my account information. Funny that they don’t allow me to see the login activity!!
This coincidentally happened after I moved from ATT DSL Yahoo to Uverse Yahoo!!
Given the changes I did:
Ran multiple virus scan and malware tools
Changed password
Added sign-in picture at login (only applies to the device I log in from)
Deleted mobile yahoo messenger (very used it)
Given all that next step is google email since Yahoo seems uninterested in helping.
The Lone Moon // November 24th 2011
Omigawd, everyone has the same problem!
I’ve been using Yahoo since for 14 years or so too, this is the first time it happened. I got hacked from both Yahoo Messenger AND Yahoo Mobile! I’m in California but I’ve been hacked from VIETNAM, NEW YORK, KANSAS, SOUTH AFRICA and even an “UNKNOWN” — all within the same ONE MONTH!!!
I’m freaking out because I’ve been attached to this email and the sub-email within it. ~_~
Steve // November 25th 2011
Is it coincidental to all these hacks that ATT Yahoo has disabled the login activity option in my account profile!!!
tim // November 25th 2011
It’s not just the embarrassment of having to tell everyone but this hacker also deleted all my contacts and folders…That really hurt
Doug Lambert // November 26th 2011
Yesterday, 26th November a hacker completely closed down my Yahoo email and Facebook accounts saying I was in Spain, “confused” and needed money to the sum of over E$4,000. I had confirmation of this person’s actions from friends and relatives who rang me to say that this happnened. I had been trying to follow Yahoo’s plan layout to redeem my account but when you can’t even get the email account that was useless. I now have no accounts and cannot directly contact Yahoo to see what can be done now. I have lost my email account, contact addresses (yes my fault, I should have made copies of them – I did for some) as well my Facebook account. Annoyingly, it takes time to start from scratch to rebuild what I had. The email address I have submitted is for the account I have lost
JB // November 27th 2011
How they got in was through a security hole in messenger that lets them remotely control the sending of email. From the Philippines. They were in and seemingly out in less than two minutes – I am guessing a bot.
I would suggest removing yahoo messenger from the yahoo email side bar for your ATT account and disabling it on the non ATT account (it cannot be removed from the non ATT account).
If your bundled / hosted email (e.g. ATT) does not have a link to your accounts resent login activity try https://api.login.yahoo.com/login/history
Steve // November 28th 2011
“If your bundled / hosted email (e.g. ATT) does not have a link to your accounts resent login activity try https://api.login.yahoo.com/login/history”
JB – yahoo has blocked my hacked userid from access to the login activity via the link you sent!!
AJ Kohn // November 29th 2011
Sorry to hear you’ve become another victim Doug, first of this hacker and then second to Yahoo! who seems unwilling to provide proper recourse to address these situations. Situations that seem all too common.
newr // November 30th 2011
same thing here, overseas hackers used mobile settings to hack in and send spam thing is, I see tweets and updates going out with my photo/acct in foreign languages. closed my twitter but seems they may have opened up different accounts using my id, am truly concerned about this since I cannot seem to stop the stupid yahoo messenger from running on this email account and the conversation spam is ridiculous there, thinking to just close it and run from yahoo forever.
so many of my stuffs is attached, trying to figure out how best to transition and best option for next choice, this is awful ~ good luck to all having to deal with this.
newr // November 30th 2011
btw this setting proves worthless to keep out those spammers on yahoo messenger that is attached to the email service…. any more ideas?
Block all users not in my Contact List. I will not be able to send or receive messages from users not in my Contact List.
JL // November 30th 2011
When you change passwords, I recommend changing the password from another (secure) computer from a different location. Make sure you do not save your password on the computer!
I changed my password using my friend’s computer which is outside my hometown. Lately, there’s been an increase in emails to my formerly hijacked Yahoo! email account telling me that I should scan my computer using their software. Oh, the kindness of strangers!
AJ Kohn // December 01st 2011
JL,
I want to thank you for your continuing assistance to those dealing with this issue. I really appreciate your efforts and I know many others do as well.
JL // December 01st 2011
You’re welcome, AJ. The suggestion I haven’t made is the most radical–deleting my computers’ hard drive and starting over. One computer guy suggested it, another said only my email was hijacked so it did not impact my computer. In January I’m double backing up all my files, wiping my hard drive and installing everything from scratch. Ouch!
I’ve estimated it’s going to take me at least 6 months to check/delete all my Yahoo! emails. I’m eventually moving everything to Gmail and AOL.
AJ Kohn // December 01st 2011
Wow JL. That is the true nuclear option.
Susan // December 02nd 2011
Thanks AJ, so glad I found this page. I would never have known about the Recent Activity page in Yahoo mail.
Another with-yahoo-from-the-start user, now in Athens Greece. Perhaps Yahoo are trying to make their service so poor that it will well fit with other products when it is eventually bought up by Microsoft. Most of the new-improved version changes are eye candy that I am not interested in.
My account was hacked on 30th Nov, 2011, from Japan supposedly, while I was logged out. It came to my notice from a helpful friend. I discovered that my contacts had been sent an email with a supposed link which turned out to be a trojan!
Seems I came off better than many of you since I got access to my account OK and changed passwords/questions etc. without anyone deleting my contacts or mail messages.
I was hacked via Yahoo!Mobile. Don’t have it myself, nor do I have a mobile phone net connected with any such app.
Sadly I too have many old messages in my mailbox and will also now have to go through them all to see if there are any that have delicate matter in them. I have a running notification for a digital magazine subscription that arrives with both my username and password to access the mag in it. Despite my repeated complaints about this, no changes have been made to that yet. I know one mail sent from my hacked account included password/ID for something apparently.
I also use my account for work – no longer! Will have to go over to the Windows Live Mail for that (which I have been avoiding like the plague!).
A sad sad state of affairs Yahoo – What on earth are you doing?
Allan // December 03rd 2011
Sorry to hear that everyone is having this problem. I actually just got hacked in late Novemeber from Saudia Arabia, Philippines, Vietnam, Poland, and Virgina. All which accessed my account from Yahoo Mobile. I wasn’t aware that I was hacked until I began having problems logging in from my smartphone. I kept getting password/username errors when I tried to access my email from my phone. I logged in from my laptop and lo and behold yahoo had blocked my account as they suspected that my account was hacked. All I had to do was change my password. Unfortunetly my account was hacked again in less than a week. I don’t know what information was stolen from me or what these hackers did with my account but it is frightening to think that they have control of this account for ever. I strongly believe that my account was hacked from apps that are on my phone but i have no idea from which one. I dont have any games or other apps with ads. THe only app ive downloaded is a walgreens app but its hard to believe that was the cause. I just came to the conclusion that phones are not a safe way to do anything anymore. I recently heard on the news that malls were tracking peoples every move to see the trend of the stores they went into. Also just today I read somewhere that cell conversations were being tapped into. REALLY!!! It’s completely sad to see what this world is turning into. Good Luck to all of you!
IHATEHACKERS // December 03rd 2011
@JL
Don’t do that, it’s worthless. My computer crashed a few weeks ago and I had to wipe everything and reinstall windows 7 from scratch. Today, my yahoo mail got hacked, so it’s not related at all.
spammersarescum // December 04th 2011
Glad I found this website. I got an email from a good friend today stating he had received an email from me which seemed “odd”. Turned out to be spam from some rogue site in Argentina! I have since closed down my yahoo! email account and will not be returning. They really need to get this sorted, as it appears to be happening to far too many people.
IamMe // December 04th 2011
I too got hacked just the other day. Same access type via Messenger authentication, someone accessed it from Brazil!!! Got onto Yahoo support and had no joy, just script reading and i may got a virus which i have NOT, must be an inside job? i have never ever been hacked in this way before and been with yahoo 5+ years!!
andersson // December 06th 2011
Me too… At first I thought my droid tablet was the culprit, but I do not access Yahoo mail from it. It seems all these different countries cited as source of invasion are just IP spoofing. Been Y user for so long… I almost never accessed my Yahoo account directly, as it was mainly an email forwarder to Gmail. Good luck from Brazil.
andersson // December 06th 2011
By the way: My 2 computers are clean from trojans/viruses/malwares according to Avira Antivir Rescue, updated and booted from a pendrive.
JL // December 06th 2011
@IHATEHACKERS
Thanks, good to know. I was also going to wipe out my disk because a lot of websites were using my hard drive for storage. Fortunately last week when I upgraded my operating system, it looks like a lot of the the storage hogs were eliminated. I actually gained 4GB of storage when I upgraded. Now my settings do not allow websites to use my hard drive for storage.
Randy // December 06th 2011
Something just happened to me. One thought I rarly use the laptop normally just my IPOD. I do surf the web with it, plus facebook. Well you don’t need a password from the IPOD or any othe PDA (smartphone, IPAD) to access any of those accounts. I’m no Geek but with all the PDA out there how hard would it be?
I’ve changed my password for Yahoo and set up a hotmail account for facebook.
CCP // December 08th 2011
I too have been with Yahoo! since the beginning of time, and I too got hacked just yesterday at 1:01 am from Canada and from the account that I NEVER EVER use with online shopping. All of my contacts received bogus emails from “me”. I changed my password, yet emails continue to go out today from “me”. I had only checked my email on my Droid mobil app and from my ipad.
From what I’m gathering here, its more than likely from my cell?
Is that correct? Should I disable my emails from my Droid phone?
Thanks!
andersson // December 09th 2011
Security Advisory: For Yahoo Mail Users:
http://blog.escanav.com/2011/12/01/security-advisory-for-yahoo-mail-users/
Richard // December 10th 2011
My yahoo account which I have established in 1997 got hacked few months back and sent spam email to all my contacts.
Annoying as this is, I cleaned everything I could and I keep changing password almost every week. My account has not been sending spam anymore. BUT, what really puzzles me is that every two to three weeks somebody from Netherlands loggs in (as I can see at the “login activity” window) into my account.
Do I have some ticking time bomb here ? How can they find out my password if it is being constantly changed ?
SLee // December 13th 2011
I had 2 GMail accounts for over 5 years and they were hacked 2 months ago. One email I could not retrieve access to but the other I did so I decided to keep it, delete all my contacts and emails within it and monitor it after changing my password, security question and enabling the 2 step verification feature. I am not too tech-savvy so I did not know what the POP/IMAP features did so I left those on. Also, I accessed my email via phone using the mail application, which I understand now may have been a problem.
As a further precaution, I created a Yahoo! email to “ensure the safety of my professional emails”…little did I know how this provider is EVEN MORE UNSAFE…”great!”
So, I had put all this behind me, monitoring activity ever so often but overall I thought I was ok. 2 months go by and I noticed that my GMail password changed. ***Can someone explain to me how this can happen if I have the 2 step verification thing on?*** Reading all the comments above, I assume is has to do with this POP/IMAP feature which allows me to access my email though my phone…I noticed that a lot of the logins by the hacker are using IMAP, but some are also browser. So I turned those feature off yesterday after logging off of all sessions, changing my password, security question… Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what else I should deactivate or look into? The hacker is doing nothing more than being a voyeur (from what I can tell)…either that or lying in wait to use the credit card info that USED to arrive to that email.
I realize this is a mostly Yahoo! thread of posts, but I’m mentioning this since a lot of people here suggest switching to GMail…the precautions I have taken so far have been pointless.
Regarding my Yahoo! mail acct.: In reviewing the login activity, it doesn’t seem to catch every login. I have personally signed in using my phone and computer but see logins from my browser (no mobile) AND the last activity shown was weeks ago when I log in daily…does anyone know if there is a feature that the hacker might turn off to stop recording IP activity/logins?
Thanks to everyone for sharing and for the input…knowledge is power!!!
Pamela // December 13th 2011
I use Firefox, this is a Macintosh, and it happened anyway.
CK // December 13th 2011
Sadly, it is reassuring to see so many others have encountered this. My problem is I actually have the hackers email! He lives in India and says he was helping his Dad (he said his Dads account was one letter off from mine and could not remember it). He apologized and said it would not happen again. However, when I try to reset it says it will send the password to MY email, but the email is the hackers.
How on earth does this even happen? I have had Yahoo! mail for 12 years, never a problem. now it seems like really any person with some persistence can log in. The same dude has gotten into my gmail too. I can’t even get a back up as that is hacked as well.
I’m very concerned that when I send a test email (from work email) to my yahoo it kicks back as “there is no account”. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUH?! 12 years of email down the drain??
Anyone else having this situation??
Victoria // December 14th 2011
I need your help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a yahoo mail. Since Sunday my recent login account information are not getting updated.
If any one knows how to solve problem please tell me.
I do not know what to do or how to fix the problem to get updated login activities.
Yahoo customer care was not much of help.
Thanks in advance.
Bill // December 14th 2011
This is Bill, who posted back in mid-November about a Yahoo hack. I just got a message from a friend tonight, whose GMail account was hacked and sent spam to his contact list. He’s a tech guy and will troubleshoot as best he can, but I noticed a couple messages up-thread about GMail problems and wanted to update the thread that it just happened to a known trusted source.
Ugh.
m h // December 15th 2011
hi m yahoo email i am sure hacked with some one my email address is gladis2020@yahoo.com
i am sure this preson ( hassanplan@yahoo.com ) hacked and block my account i can not accesses to my email he is really bother me also he hacked my Facebook too i can not accesses to my Facebook too please help me and block his account i have my count for long time age please help me thanks million
Baoli // December 15th 2011
Hi my yahoo email was hacked two months ago and I just found it two weeks ago.
I changed the password but the recent activities is not working?. I can not see my recent login records.
Mark // December 15th 2011
I’m an on-site computer repair technician. I’ve had dozens of clients that I know of where their Yahoo, Gmail, AOL or Hotmail account has been hacked, and the hacker is sending spam with vague subject lines and little or no text plus a link to a website in the body of the message.
Since this problem is happening on multiple email systems, I doubt it’s a security vulnerability with Yahoo. I think it’s largely due to password re-use. Remember all those Sony accounts that were hacked last year? The Sony hackers are likley trying the same email & password to login to email accounts. I tell my clients to NEVER USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR DIFFERENT WEBSITES!
I’ve also had several clients who have replied to an official-looking email from Yahoo or AOL that threatens the suspension of their email account if they don’t reply with their email information including their password. Within 12 hours of replying, the phisher has sent an email to all of their contacts with a story about being in a foreign country and in need of money to get home. The phisher had also deleted the contacts and all email. I tell my clients, NEVER SEND FINANCIAL INFORMATION OR PASSWORDS OVER EMAIL, NOR TO AN UNSOLICITED TELEPHONE CALLER.
abhi // December 20th 2011
NICE one !! ,
my account logged in from JORDAN
iM in INDIA !
no wonder my friends got viagra mails
JL // January 01st 2012
Must read:
“Seven Ways to Get Yourself Hacked” from Technology Review (Published by MIT).
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/39354/?ref=rss
JL // January 02nd 2012
How to Create and Remember Strong Passwords:
http://safeandsavvy.f-secure.com/2010/03/15/how-to-create-and-remember-strong-passwords/
meridienmick // January 03rd 2012
Having been hacked last week, I tried to view the “Recent Login” details, but it stops on 24th November. I thought you all might be reassured by Yahoo’s response to my request for help. Transcript of live chat follows;
Please wait for a Yahoo! agent to respond. You are currently number 1 in the queue. Your estimated wait time is 1 minutes, 0 seconds.
You are now chatting with Summer
Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK5390798027X
Summer: Good day! Welcome to our Yahoo! Account Verification Live Chat service. I’m happy you’ve joined us.
Summer: Thank you for providing us the details of your issue.
Summer: In my understanding, you are having difficulties viewing your Recent Login activity. Am I right, Mick?
Mick Price: That is correct. I can view it up to 24th November but nothing more recent than that
Summer: Thank you for the confirmation. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, and I’m glad to be of assistance.
Summer: Please provide me your Yahoo! email address having this concern.
Mick Price: (Reply deleted)
Summer: Thank you for reporting this issue.
Summer: We’re aware that recent Login Activity events for your account have not been updating recently. We’re currently working on restoring this account feature as soon as possible. Please understand that we will be unable to restore any of the missing Login Activity events for your account.
Mick Price: That’s not very helpful
Summer: I do apologize for whatever inconvenience this may have caused you.
Mick Price: Yeah, OK
Summer: Can I help you with anything else at this time?
Mick Price: I doubt it
Summer: Please be assured that I would prioritize this issue and send it to our Product Specialist Team to correct this issue as soon as possible.
Summer: Thank you for using Yahoo! Account Verification Team. If you have any other questions, please feel free to come back and chat with us at any time.
Summer: To receive a transcript of this chat, or tell us how we did today, please click the “End Chat” button on the top right of the chat window.
Summer: Thanks so much for visiting. Please be in touch any time. We’re always here!
Summer: Thanks a lot for chatting.
Summer: Bye!
Summer: Have a good one.
Thank you for contacting us. Have a great day.
Mandy // January 07th 2012
I am having the same problem with my account and my husbands account. Our last login activity shows as December 8th. I emailed yahoo and have not yet received a reply.
yhsad // January 08th 2012
@Mandy I wrote to them and YH’s response was that they are aware log in activity ends with 2011 and they are very sorry for this inconvenience but rest assured they are working on this.
I was chatting with someone today who works in electronics department and their gmail had same issue.
In addition to the password change and other precautions, I wonder if anyone has used this old trick I learned from AOL long ago to stop spam where you adjust your contact list emails to include an “x” or ” * ” at the beginning of the address to serve several areas in the event hackers get in to send spam;
your inbox will contain returned mail with invalid address alerting you to the status and this could save friends from being spammed as well as shutting down the hacker attempt on your account
The downside is time spent deleting the added keystroke when you do send out email to those contacts.
Just food for thought, there might be a way to shoot holes in this as I have been tossing it around in my mind but not yet put it to the test. I had some of the fake email addresses return to my in box when I put a vacation message up advising temp. suspension on the account, that alerted me they had tried to mess with my mail yet again. grrrrr
LUCY // January 08th 2012
I am being cyberharassed, and I believe the person harassing me was able to hack into my Yahoo account. I woke up this morning to my password changed and a large portion of my email deleted. I believe it is this person due to the specific folder that was not only wiped clean of email, but completely deleted. Thankfully I realized what had happened quickly, and Yahoo was able to restore my deleted information.
My question is…What can Yahoo do to help me catch this person? Very personal, and potentially damaging information was accessed and I feel completely violated. I follow their roundabout of help tips and have been continuously directed to check my “Recent Log In Activity”. I check there, and what help it ends on 12/8/11. I’ve read on here that Yahoo is aware of this issue and they are trying to fix it? What good does that do me right now? I am terrified this person will hack into my account and do the same thing again. I have done my best to secure my account at this point. I am unsure of what else I can do?
Fdpari // January 10th 2012
Same same here…mine though
I reset my password as soon as i received the message and it happened AGAIN. Someone changed my password AND my alternate email so now i can’t even change my password. The worst part is that my alternate email was also a yahoo account and it seems as if that has been hacked too ugghhhh…I have emailed yahoo and now i’m just praying they can allow me to log in so i can delete the whole thing.
j.r. // January 12th 2012
Yahoo mail hacked on 01/10/12 at 1:10 p.m.
I have noticed over the past couple of months that Yahoo has not been functioning properly. Yesterday was the deal breaker. After many years of email, my yahoo accounts will be closed and Yahoo will never see my IP again. Sad to see a giant wasted by the inability of the people at the top to let the site evolve and grow. Typical of U.S. enterprise today.
Hackers sent messages to everyone in my inbox. All have been warned – hopefully not too late.
gaurav // January 13th 2012
Hi my spouse’s yahoo account has been hacked by someone and he changed all the information which i saved like secret question,password,alternate email address and everything.
I want to complain against him and as well as i want to locked her account on deadly priority. Now please rply me asap.
AJ Kohn // January 13th 2012
I’m sorry to hear that Gaurav. Follow the Yahoo! Email Abuse Help link at the top of this post so you can contact Yahoo directly about your problem.
Florence // January 17th 2012
I couldn’t find the “Manage Locations” or “Location Management” page via Yahoo! help. Is it in my browser, instead?
AJ Kohn // January 19th 2012
Florence,
Here’s a shortcut link to the Manage Locations page. I hope this helps.
newgirl // January 20th 2012
Although my settings were contacts only for messenger, conversations continued to appear and my Yahoo switched back to classic after I sent the last complaint into the abuse department so I guess that was their best answer at the time, but I don’t know for sure if they did it or not. I changed the password again and wish they would fix their security breach issues.
Joe // January 20th 2012
Just found this blog as my yahoo account was recently hacked and my contacts were spammed like most of us here. Anyone know why the recent activity log under ‘Account info’ only goes back about 2 weeks? Also, I see some posters could see their hackers locations like Romania, Peru, etc. My log only shows my log in location….strange. Any ideas?
FLORENCE // January 24th 2012
@ JOE – Two guesses: you were hacked before your cusp entry of 2 weeks ago and they didn’t start spamming right away OR your hacker lives in the same geographical area as you. At the top of the page did you change “Location” to “IP Address”? If it was the same IP address then it was someone in your home or someone who had access to your network; if it was a different IP address then it was someone who lives in the same geographical area as you. Another possibility is that the hacker used an “anonymizer”. I don’t know if Yahoo! can penetrate them or not.
newgirl // January 25th 2012
@Florence, Good info on Location/IP Address selector. Never noticed the selection choice, thanks for sharing.
waldo // January 25th 2012
I have an account with yahoo and used to leave comments but I can no longer leave,and only from one computer.I am perfectly ble from other computers.Could someone or yahoo have attach something just for my computer?
Florence // January 25th 2012
@ Waldo – It sounds as though Yahoo! is targeting the computer that can no longer leave messages by the IP address. This would explain why the other computers still work. I would contact Yahoo! customer service with the computer that cannot leave messages and ask them if they are blocking that IP address for any reason. Also, Yahoo! doesn’t download anything to your computer without your permission … Yahoo! Messenger would be an example of something you would have to opt into downloading. Good luck!
JL // January 27th 2012
New York Times article, “Protecting a Cellphone Against Hackers”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/technology/personaltech/protecting-a-cellphone-against-hackers.html?src=rechp
Info // January 27th 2012
FWIW You can use a proxy server to make it look like your logging in from Romain or China too.
Donavon // January 27th 2012
I just got hacked from Turkey and the Philippines.
7:35 PM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Philippines <—–
6:36 PM Browser Logged in to Mail CA, US
Yesterday 10:24 PM Browser Logged in to Mail CA, US
9:37 AM Browser Logged In CA, US
Jan 24, 2012 8:06 AM Browser Logged in to Mail CA, US
Jan 23, 2012 7:31 PM Browser Logged in to Mail CA, US
Jan 21, 2012 1:32 PM Browser Logged in to Mail CA, US
Jan 19, 2012 11:52 PM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Turkey <——-
Heather // January 30th 2012
Here we go again. Four months later and I just got a text message from yahoo telling me that “I” tried to recover my password through my secret question. Interesting.
Unfortunately for them my secret questions are rather difficult. This is really starting to tick me off. Of course, I can’t see where the attempted log-in is coming from. No IP record. Grrrrrr.
WP // January 31st 2012
Yep, it happened to me too.. Someone from “Serbia” accessed my Yahoo account on 1/28.. They sent out some spam, but I managed to catch it a few hours later & change the password. A week or so earlier, I received an email from Zappos.com telling me that their servers were hacked and my info was “compromised”…. Some of us carry some personal info in their saved email.. So you may want to think about setting up some fraud alerts with the credit agencies. I’ll never know if they just wanted email adresses for spam, or whether they downloaded my folders to mine the old emails.
Disgruntled Yahoo User // February 03rd 2012
12:07 PM Browser Logged in to Yahoo Front Page OH, US
11:55 AM Browser Logged in to Yahoo Front Page OH, US
10:43 AM Yahoo! Mobile Logged In Vietnam <====== R U Kidding Me?!
3:34 PM Browser Logged in to Yahoo Front Page OH, US
6:44 PM Browser Logged in to Yahoo Front Page OH, US
I have the following question, hopefully somebody can answer from experience. I am switching to gmail, they offer to "connect to an existing account", should I connect to my yahoo account since its been hacked? It would be so easy to attach the 2 for the address book and message forwarding, but i will not do it if it will make my gmail account susceptible to being hacked. If anybody has any thoughts/info, I appreciate it.
Bill // February 04th 2012
Vietnam email spoofing. They have my contact list. I cannot find how to change my password in Yahoo mail classic. It’s my sbcglobal address. Since I have ATT internet and also a ATT.net address, everytime I try to stay in Yahoo/SBC to use their change password, I get kicked over to ATT and asked to sign in to my ATT.net, which does not help change the password in sbc. HELP!
If you know how to do this email me please. Keep in mind that I cannot access my sbc account even with “cant access account” feature as the hacker/phisher changed my security questions
MW // February 06th 2012
This is what happened while i was chatting to a Yahoo! Agent
info: Please wait for a Yahoo! agent to respond. You are currently number 1 in the queue. Your estimated wait time is 0 minutes, 1 seconds.
info: You are now chatting with Summer
info: Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK5390944326X
Summer: Good day! Welcome to our Yahoo! Account Verification Live Chat service. I’m happy you’ve joined us.
Summer: Thank you for providing us the details of your issue.
Summer: In my understanding, you think that your account has been compromised. Am I right, Mark?
Mark: yES. YES YOU ARE.
Summer: Thank you for the confirmation. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, and I’m glad to be of assistance.
Summer: Please provide me your Yahoo! email address having this concern.
Mark: mwatson16@yahoo.co.uk
Summer: How did you know that your account was has been compromised?
Mark: I have also noticed that i keep on getting messages from people not in my contact list “Hey, do you have webcam, youre so hat i could bang you up the a$$”
Mark: I dont know, i have also been experiencing unusual Login Activity from an iPhone in my location, i have an Motorola Defy.
Summer: Thanks for the information.
Summer: If you’re seeing an IP address or Location that differs greatly from your usual IP (Internet Protocol) address, it could either mean that you’ve recently accessed your account from a different location or that someone else has accessed your account.
Mark: Okay, The iPhone’s I.P address was the exact same as my Motorola Defy.
Summer: However, it’s important to know that in some cases, mobile providers and Internet proxies may appear in your recent login history as coming from a different geographic location. This can sometimes be a different location than what you are normally based in.
Summer: As such, you may see login activity that you may feel is suspicious. However, it could still be your own login activity.
Mark: I did have an iphone though, so it might just be from there.
Summer: Yes, that’s right, Mark.
Summer: If you believe somebody is accessing your Yahoo! account without your authorization, you can try the following four steps to prevent this from happening in the future:
Summer: Sign out each time you are finished using your account.
Summer: Change your password.
Summer: We strongly recommend that you change your account password to a strong one. Easy for you to remember but difficult for the others to figure out your password.
Summer: Please make sure that your new password is difficult for other people to guess. A good password will contain a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters; numbers; and/or special characters such as %, $, and +.
Mark: Ok, thanks alot.
Summer: Lastly, We use either your alternate email address or your Security Question/Secret Answers as a method for issuing you a new password.
Summer: If you believe somebody knows the answer to your Security Questions or has access to your alternate email address, you can change this information.
Summer: You can also go to our security center to learn more about protecting your online security and Yahoo! Mail account:
Summer: http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/uk/yahoo/security/
kathy // February 06th 2012
my email address keeps getting hacked, several times over the past few months. I create a new account and within a few weeks it’s hacked. I can get into my emails but I cannot get into chat. I understand that a hacker can simply type in your account name over and over until Yahoo bans your account for a day. Even then I am unable to use past accounts to get into yahoo chat.
I want to get rid of all past accounts with Yahoo and create a new one today, but Yahoo wants a mobile phone number now. I do not have any mobile phone number and am unable to even create a new account! Advice anyone, short of abandoning Yahoo altogether?
Neba Ernest // February 07th 2012
I can not have access to my account. it shows that somebody is using the account.any time i log in they will tell me my password is not correct.what can one do with these type of people? and i don’t even know how to change my password.
Florence // February 08th 2012
@ KATHY – I would suggest using a chat client that interfaces with Yahoo! Messenger. There are several. I can’t speak for any of them. Google “Yahoo chat clients” and you’ll see that Trillian, the eighth one down, works on both your computer and phone. Good luck!
me // February 10th 2012
Hello! i was just checkin what most of the people have put out, i have many yahoo accounts, and some of them linked to each other (as been added to contacts) and some day i recived an email from some account of mine … it was spam, i think i havent been in that account for like 4 months or longer and havent had such big activity on it to make it seem interesting for spammers! it was done by somebody from poland, im from romania, and it was from a mobile device, not that i ever loged in from any mobile, and for sure my computer did not have any keyloggers, or trojans, nor do i click and log in to scam websites… yea i guess they found a way to brute force emails, i remember even that website meebo, would let you try unlimited variants of passwrods n such… they changed that now. sadly yahoo wont do anything, and there are ways. hope you all will get your problems fixed!
Ryan // February 11th 2012
In Yahoo Account info, they have a Beta secondary password required you can set. When you use a different computer, yahoo will send you a text with a confirmation code, before you can access your yahoo account on that computer. USE IT! I just turned mine on.
BOB // February 11th 2012
Why this website forum is still up and running is beyond me:
http://www.crackhackforum.com/thread-182965.html
Kris // February 13th 2012
Hi, I have been having problems with my emails that started after i got a BlackBerry about a year ago. It started with my yahoo account saying my password was changed. I thought it was my yahoo account being hacked but it didn’t send out any spam, just changed my password. I started using my AOL account and it sent out spam on that account. So then I created one then another gmail account. Both started having the problems of my password changing. Now all 4 of my accounts lock me out at the exact same date/time about once per month. I have Norton and then couldn’t help me. I’ve had Best Buy scan my computer twice and they found nothing. I was able to look up the account log in history and found two IP addresses in the US accessing my accounts at the same time. One was called AT&T Firewall something that had a fishy looking website. I believe these people are accessing my computer somehow as websites such as craigslist that remember what city you are in, have been set to other city’s where I do not live without my doing this. Additionally, my Facebook has now locked me out. Everyone keeps telling me to change my password to something difficult and to change my security questions. I have made my passwords so difficult that I have to write them down to remember and they are different for all my accounts. I even have that verification process to change my passwords but it still keeps locking me out. This weekend I changed all my passwords/security questions from another computer so we shall see if that works. However, i am still concerned someone is getting into my computer and my access my bank and other accounts. I’m at a point where i feel like I need to get a new computer. And for my Black Berry, I stopped hooking it up to all my emails months ago, and still having problems. Additionally, Best Buy suggested i factory reset my BlackBerry which I did and i did not reattach my emails too. Still I am being locked out. I have no idea where else to go for help. Help!
HSW // February 14th 2012
My ex was hacking into my email so I changed passwords and signed up for the secondary sign in. Unfortunately when I bought a new laptop and expected to be asked for the code being an unfamiliar machine, I was not. I sent help notes to Yahoo and received one note asking for clarification and then heard nothing. All of a sudden though I did start getting requests for the code, after I’d been signing in on the new laptop for 2 weeks or so. But two codes were sent at the same time, so often I’d enter the “wrong” one. sigh. Anyway, Is it usual to see tons of mobile log ons from distant states? Could they be service providers used locally? I am so confused! Also, when I check saved locations, it shows international locations I’ve never been?
JL // February 16th 2012
A post on another website regarding email hacking and how to report cyber crime.
http://eastmnweeklynews.com/2010/11/06/email-hacking-is-a-cyber-crime-my-story-and-how-to-report-cyber-crimes.html
Jeff // February 18th 2012
Here in Connecticut as in many other parts of the country the local telephone (and thus DSL provider) is AT&T who uses the Yahoo mail platform for their subscribers, so if your email address is att.net, sbc.net, snet.net, or a similar domain of any of the other former companies they have acquired, you really have a Yahoo mail account as well, so all of this applies to you.
I’ve lost count of how many of my friends, fellow church members, and business associates have had their email accounts hacked like this. It appears there are any number of easily obtained hacking programs that cut through Yahoo’s email “security” as if it was melted butter.
Are the idiots at Yahoo so stupid that nobody knows this is going on? Don’t they have any security people interested in plugging these holes? The fact that this has been going on as long as it has just boggles the mind!
I just sent my latest “stock” message back to another friend who is among the latest victims . . .
Hi Doug,
I just received an email purporting to be from you, but unless you have taken to sending out links to overseas sources for male potency drugs, I am guessing that you have joined the growing ranks of SBC / SNET / AT&T / Yahoo mail users who have had their email accounts hacked.
You will want to log into your account and change your password as soon as possible. As I tell everybody, make it a complex password containing both upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols as these are harder to crack.
Jeff
Jeff // February 18th 2012
A quick follow up to my last post . . .
After reading through the amazing number of posts on this board (And THANK YOU AJ for doing this!) I was inspired to send the following to the Yahoo Security team:
To: security@yahoo-inc.com
Subject: Account Hacking Software
Gentlemen -
Responding to complaints from my users about messages from Yahoo email subscribers whose accounts have been hacked is becoming a full time occupation. Some investigation has uncovered any number of internet hacking forums providing software specifically targeting email accounts on your platform. Some examples are this one: http://www.crackhackforum.com/forum-69.html with posts such as: http://www.crackhackforum.com/thread-182965.html
I have not gone so far as to try to figure out why Yahoo accounts seem to be so vulnerable to this activity, but it is becoming common knowledge that the Yahoo mail system (including the domains you host for AT&T and other providers) is becoming a growing source of UCE, exacerbated by the fact that the traffic is generated from what appear to be legitimate accounts within your domain, delivered by your mail exchangers.
This does not appear to be a corporate priority for Yahoo, but count me as among a growing number of domain administrators who are seriously considering blacklisting all email from Yahoo and the other domains hosted on your platform until something is done about the problem.
Sincerely,
Jeff+++++ M+++++
Director of Information Technology
The ++++++++++ Church of +++++++, CT
Mike // February 19th 2012
I was recently haked. Same exact issue… It happened about 2 weeks ago, so you can see that yahoo is doing nothing to address this.
What hapened was that I went to yahoo mail on my mobile phone browser. I didn’t enter any of my user info. It was previously saved from my last log-in. Immediately, I started getting undeliverable and out of office replies from my contacts. That’s when I knew I was hacked. I checked my activity log… My email was accessed from Brazil. I was in California.
What’s weird is that I was recently in Jamaica, and yahoo decided that I was hacking into my account because I was out of the country. So the one time I did access my account outside of the country, their security team caught it. Too bad it was me that was trying to access my account.
I have since deleted all my contacts, so that this will never happen again. I strongly suggest using another email provider.
Chrissy // February 21st 2012
Add me to the list…I was hacked a few days ago, and I only noticed because my gmail account is listed as a contact on my yahoo account so I was sending spam to myself! I called “customer service” for yahoo…big waste of time. They took an hour to basically tell me my computer was infected from a bad email…strange since I haven’t actually opened an email from Yahoo in quite some time. Also, McAfee scan tells me my computer is fine. They then told me they were going to transfer me to a Microsoft expert whom I would have to pay to fix my computer remotely. I “politely” refused this, then proceeded to change all my info involving the yahoo address to my gmail account and cancelled the yahoo. I didn’t see this thread until I had already cancelled it, so I didn’t get the pleasure of seeing where my account was hacked from…but after reading this, I can only imagine!
BOB // February 22nd 2012
After being hacked a couple of weeks ago, my sister’s e-mail account was also hacked today. However, she only uses Hotmail. She also admitted that she logged into her e-mail account, via her mobile, a day or two ago.
Personally, I think this may be an Android issue. I think everyone should NOT use their mobile for logging into websites. If you have done so already, either remove the accounts from your mobile and/or restore factory settings.
You can follow any responses to this entry via its RSS comments feed. You may also leave a trackback by clicking this link.