Beware “Phishing” Scams

Fraudsters are Out There, Angling for Your Private Information

We don’t want to cause a panic, but the fact is that bad guys who want your passwords are roaming the Net—and, they’ll grab your credit card and social security numbers, your home address, your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name, too, if they have the opportunity.

These days, “phishing” scams are commonly received in just about everybody’s email. Usually, the phonies look just like the emails from large companies that many of us already do business with, like Amazon, eBay and Yahoo!. They even have official-looking logos and language that sounds like a typical, legitimate email.

Fortunately, there are usually clues in these emails that should raise red flags as you read them.

How to Recognize a Scam Email
Phishing emails usually try to hook you with some official-sounding message about your account. A common subject line is “Please Verify Your…” Once you open the email, you’ll often see familiar corporate colors, branding, logos and language. Sometimes they will tell you that your account has been disabled for a bogus reason. At other times, they’ll offer a “free upgrade” to a new (and often non-existent) service.

Recent Phishing Attempt Aimed at Our Advertisers
Like all large Internet companies, Yahoo! is not immune to having its customers targeted by phishing expeditions. First, take a look at this email, which we sent this past Spring to our Local Sponsored Search advertisers, advising them of the upgrade of their accounts to the new “Panama” system:

With a few changes, a scam artist then turned the above into the email below and randomly sent it out to thousands of recipients:

Don’t Give Out Account or Personal Info to Anyone
The biggest clue in the fake email is that it asks for your username and password. Yahoo! will never send you an email asking for your password

Another way to help tell the faux from the friendly is by looking at the sender’s email address. Most of the official communications we send you will come from an address that looks like this: solutions(at)ysm.yahoo-email.com. If you get an email from a yahoo.com address asking you for info, it’s a good bet that it’s a fake.

If you think you’ve been “phished” for info, please let us know by emailing phishing(at)cc.yahoo-inc.com, or forward the email in question to that address.

To learn more about how you can keep from getting reeled in by “phishermen,” and how to guard against other Internet-based scams, visit these resources:

—The Team

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9 Comments Add your own

1. Hollywood Gossips | November 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm

but i dont think so, if any one is regular internet user its hard to cheat by such email as i have paypal account and i received such email but i know they are hacker so this will be very degerous to peopel who dont use internet frequently or who dont check URL of website before entering data
2. Jay (Conquering Adwords) | November 28th, 2007 at 4:58 pm

To the above, what you say is true but the hackers already know this and they are getting smarter.

Imagine the same email and they don’t change anything but the link…the anchor text stays the same and you get led to a phishing site when you think you’re on a yahoo official site. Sometimes even the most careful of people will get caught.

I know some myspace users who lost their accounts because they went looking for an innocent laugh…after the joke was over they get redirected to login…they should have thought to themselves that they were already logged in but hey I almost got caught too.
3. ksettles | December 20th, 2007 at 4:33 am

We received an email purporting to be from U.S. Bank telling us we needed to upgrade our account via a hyperlink in the email. We contacted the bank and sent them a copy of the email so they could check it out. They said they would not ask us to put any info by way of an email. That if we needed to change anything on our account we would be told to go into our secure account in the normal to update.
4. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | December 26th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

[…] and Part II). We’ve also offered tips on how to avoid taking the bait when lured by a “phishing” scam, how to use the handy Insert Keyword feature to help you improve your ad quality, […]
5. Australian Online Adverti&hellip | January 9th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

[…] and Part II). We’ve also offered tips on how to avoid taking the bait when lured by a “phishing” scam, how to use the handy Insert Keyword feature to help you improve your ad quality, […]
6. daniel bruch | January 15th, 2008 at 5:59 pm

I have just recieved an email from customerservice_data@yahoo.com

with subject:VERIFY YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT!!!!!
with following message:

Dear Account User,

This Email is from Yahoo! Customer Care and we are sending it to every Yahoo! Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Yahoo! accounts so we are shutting down some Yahoo! accounts and your account was among those to be deleted.We are sending you this email to so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below. Your User name,Password,Date Of Birth (DOB) and your Country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Yahoo! users and removal of all unused Yahoo! Accounts, Yahoo! would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: …………………………

* Password: …………………………..

* Date of Birth: ……………………….

* Country Or Territory: …………….

After following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconveniences.

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

I just want to know if it has anything to do with Yahoo or not?
Dont want to give out information of my yahoo acount to wrong persons.

Best Regards
Daniel Bruch
7. Is Paul McCartney Dead? | March 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Great information. With everything out there in the internet area, be on your guard.
8. yahoonot | March 27th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

this IS a phishing site
9. Kingstons | May 4th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

I know most of the regular internet users and masters do not even think to open these scams email but one very important factor or the other part which every Internet Marketing Person need to consider is the Account Sharing to there Boss or non technical person i.e. a Manager who need to check the weekly or monthly reports and he/she want a account Full access.