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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

You’ve Been Hacked

Fellow Bloggers . . . Has this happened to you?

My Yahoo email account was hacked last week. While that’s bad news, it wasn’t disastrous. This  email hasn’t used in a long time, but I neglected to delete and left were contacts emails in it, including myself, which is HOW I found out that the account had been compromised. Grenville also got a suspicious looking email.

It’s our standing practice NEVER to open links in emails and by now most folks know NOT to send me any forwarded emails. Maybe it’s because I’ve told them they would be immediately deleted on receipt?

What to do If your email gets hacked — According to Yahoo Support the first thing you should do is change the password — DONE. My next step was to delete all contacts, bypassing the caution that this action could not be reversed. My final step was to delete the account entirely. Of course, Yahoo wanted to make sure . . .

We are sorry to see you go!
Are you sure you want to terminate your Yahoo! Account?

Sure DO. In recent months some friends and family have had email accounts hacked. This was a first for me, and showed the need for greater vigilance in opting whether or not to list contacts online.

I learned that IF you poke around an email account you can find out lots of stuff, for example, in Yahoo you can view your most often visited locations under Location History:

Lancaster,Pennsylvania,United States
Virginia,United States,23418
Onley,Virginia,United States,23418
Plainfield,New Jersey,United States
New London,Connecticut,United States,06320
Nashua,New Hampshire,United States
Cranston,Rhode Island,United States

I also found out that the account was hacked twice from Iran:

 
4:09 AM
Browser
Mail Access
Iran2.178.155.146


4:09 AM
Yahoo! Mobile
Logged In
Iran2.178.155.146

NOW, you would think that some sort of red flags would have gone up in Yahoo because of those orange exclamation points, which displayed online. My previous locations were only U.S. east coast.

Do you see Iran on my location list? I didn’t.

So the question is WHY is Yahoo making it this easy for spammers to hijack accounts?

Yahoo should have noted this unusual location and used security questions to validate identity. But, apparently they do NOT.

A simple rule set night be that users would be asked to validate identity if the login (even a successful one) is outside a certain mile radius of any prior location.

This is NOT to say that hacking couldn’t occur with my Gmail or internet provider email account, BUT so far it has not and hopefully will remain that way. But, as a precaution I have started changing passwords.

WHEN when you terminate a Yahoo account, this messages displays:

Yahoo! Account Terminated
Your account has been deactivated and scheduled for deletion.

Along with this wording: You no longer have access to this account, which will be deleted from our user database in approximately 90 days. This delay is necessary to discourage users from engaging in fraudulent activity.

GEE, maybe Yahoo should  have thought of that sooner?

15 comments:

Karen Lakis said...

Yikes! Thanks for the information- this is not fun!

Country Gal said...

We have been with g-mail oh for years about 10 years to be exact and so far been ok. G- mail has good filters so this is harder for hackers to get to as well but these days the hackers are smarter then the tech guys that set all these sites up. I never open an e-mail that I don't know or recognize . Hope all is good now that you have got rid of the account ! Have a good evening !

Country Gal said...

P.S the hackers will get an email that you know and send it and have a virus attached to it ! My sisters e-mail kept being sent and I know it wasn't her sending it cause it wasn't like her to not open with hey kiddo they hacked her e-mail and got others from hers hence sending me crap in the form of her e-mail addy ! They are smart but I am smarter hehe !

Connie said...

Must be so frustrating to have to go through all that when it sounds like it could have been prevented if Yahoo had more filters and precautions. Hope your troubles with it are over now.

Anvilcloud said...

Usually those spam emails are easy to spot because they come thru with just a link and no subject.

Elaine said...

What a royal pain! It's hard to keep ahead of the hackers. If I get an email that looks at all suspicious I delete it. If it was legit the sender will contact me some other way.

MadSnapper said...

i know 3 people who had their Facebook account hacked, i got emails from these people that they did not send... my daughter in law called and said if you get an email from me i did not send you one. all her friends were getting emails from her she did not send, they got it off FB...

Charlotte Wilson said...

I was also hacked on my Yahoo account. I don't use it anymore but had to keep it active because of my Flickr Account. Sorry you have had so much trouble.

Montanagirl said...

I always delete forwards. Have no interest in them. Hope I never get hacked.

Lois Evensen said...

Yes, I delete forwarded emails, too. Thanks for the reminder.

CountryDew said...

Yahoo accounts seem to be easily hacked; I am forever getting emails from people with those that I know they didn't send. Glad you were able to take care of the problem.

Anonymous said...

Two simple things to do anytime you use an on line mail account like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail.
1. NEVER,NEVER use their address book. THat is how hackers get all your addresses and start sending spam.
2. Anytime you use one of these online mail programs set it up to go through your regular mail program like Outlook for PC's or Mail for Mac's. This protects you from hackers by adding an extra layer of security.
Last, if you are on a PC use a good anti hacker/virus program like Norton. If you are on a Mac, you are less likely to get hacked BUTit is possible. Beware of Java scripts.
Grenville

Leonora said...

Great post and very informative. Iran! (I was going to guess China)
The scary thing is, hacking happens too often these days.

david said...

My old Yahoo acct was ALSO hacked via IRAN -YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!
I noticed this morning that my gmail acct was sent a spam from MYSELF(yahoo acct)!
I am so angry!!!!!
Thank you for creating this blog concerning this disturbing issue..

david said...

I have changed the password of course, I WILL DELETE the account asap..I need to save some items from that yahoo acct though...
I STOPPED using Yahoo long ago because it is a playground haven for FRAUDULENT activities and hacking--DISGUSTING