Beware Yahoo E-mail Phishing Scam

Those who have e-mail accounts at Yahoo might have received a curious e-mail as of late. There is an e-mail from “Yahoo” that states that their website has been congested with too much activity with too many e-mail accounts. Therefore, many e-mail accounts are up for deletion, including yours. But never fear, you can save your e-mail account by sending Yahoo your personal information, such as your user name, password, date of birth, and other potential information.

As many veterans of the Internet game would tell you, this is not a legitimate e-mail for any number of reasons. This is an e-mail scam sent by a third party, using a very common but very useful Internet tactic called “phishing”.  

What is Phishing.

Phishing is an attempt to send e-mails from spoof accounts that resemble a legitimate account. The phishing e-mails can have many purposes, but in general it is to get people to hand over their personal information, through either a return e-mail or through a website set up. This has been used for many places, for banks, for e-mail services, pretty much anything you can name. This is Internet fraud at its finest. They just want your personal information to use for their own purposes. Some of the attachments or websites on phishing e-mails contain viruses.

Purpose of Phishing

Naturally to get their hands on your personal information and where they go from there, it depends on what your personal information is and what the phishing attack targets. Still phishing preys on those who are easily swayed by scare tactics and do not know any better. Bank accounts have been compromised as a result of phishing attacks. Full scale identity theft could be the worst case scenario. Or they can use your e-mail accounts to set up spam where you’re the person who will be blamed. These e-mails can look very real and prey upon some rather paranoid fears that some people might have.

Remember This.

As Yahoo clearly states, it will never ask for your personal information, no matter what the circumstances. No Yahoo employee will ever ask for a password or anything else. The same goes for Google, the same goes for banks, the same goes for pretty much anything. Yet many people tend to overlook this point and when the e-mails get sent, they send their personal information right through without thought of consequences. This cannot be stated enough with this scam, Yahoo will never ask for your password!

If you receive a phishing e-mail like this on Yahoo or any other e-mail account, do not respond to it, just delete it or report it to the proper authorities if you think you need to.  This fact might seem like common sense to most but it should be stated. Never, give your personal information to anyone who requests it in an e-mail, no matter who asks for it!