No Phishing Here

Watch out for phishers trying to hijack your account

We don’t like to repeat ourselves here, but it seems as if one topic never gets old: phishing. It’s not that we’re particularly fond of it, it’s just that it keeps on affecting advertisers. So, here we go again, with some phishing basics you need to know.

What is phishing?
Phishing is a scheme that requests confidential information over the Internet under false pretenses in order to fraudulently obtain credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal data. Sometimes it’ll be an e-mail asking you to click a link and update your account, supposedly because your account is low on funds, or is about to expire, or something else equally scary. But when you click that link, you’re not going to one of our pages—you’re going to a page designed to capture your Sponsored Search username and password.

Why does Yahoo! Search Marketing care about phishing?
We care about phishing because our clients have been targeted in phishing schemes designed to steal usernames and passwords. Once the phishers obtain these usernames and passwords, they upload fraudulent ad groups into your account and advertise with your money.

How much damage can a phisher do to my account?
It’s just a search marketing account, not a bank account, right? What could a phisher do with it? As it turns out, a lot. Phishers set up fraudulent campaigns, and can calibrate an account to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a day. They will max out your payment plans and every credit card you have on file. They can jeopardize your campaigns and your credit in a single day.

What can I do about it?
Spotting phishers is pretty easy if you use some of the tools we provide you, and a healthy dose of skepticism. Here are some things to look out for:

• Be wary of messages that claim your Yahoo! Search Marketing account has expired. Likewise, watch out for anything that tells your funds have expired.
• Watch out for emails with misspellings, logos that look fishy, or Yahoo! names that don’t quite match up (like Yahoo! Search Solutions, instead of Yahoo! Search Marketing), or embedded links that do not contain yahoo.com.
• Use the sign-in seal that we offer for your account login. You can set a unique image to show up every time you log in. If it’s not there, it’s a good sign you may be at a fake login page. If you’re not using it, you’re missing out on some peace of mind.
• Be careful what you click in an email, period. Yes, we do have links to your sign-in page, in some of our official Yahoo! emails, but we don’t request you to log in log in to your account or ask for personal information. If you’re not sure of an email link, go to your browser bookmarks and get to the login page from there.
• If you see anything suspicious, report it to our phishing team at phishing@cc.yahoo-inc.com.

—The Team