My yahoo e-mail got hijacked!!!

[rideit]

And today I recieved 200+ e-mails that are 'deliver failure' or 'postmaster so and so', etc, all directed towards e-mail addresses in Spain...anyone have an Idea how I can stop this?

I have had the same e-mail for ten years, this is absolutely the worst hack yet.
Is anything to be done?

TECH TALK ME!

[cj001f]

I would be happy to help you, for I am the son of the prince of Nairobi. Please send $10,000 via Western Union and I will share with you the bounty of your reclaimed email address

[MeatPuppet]

...anyone have an Idea how I can stop this?

eer, maybe change your password?

[rideit]

How would changing my password stop a bot?
I'll try it, though...

[greg]

somebody probably got your password somehow. phished, keyloged, cracked. so change it and get a better one and check those computers from which you usually log into your account.

[The Dad]

They didn't necessarily crack your email.

They might just be spoofing the headers and using your email as a return address.

Change your password to be safe, but it probably won't make a difference. What will make a difference is them moving onto the next reply-to.

[MeatPuppet]

How would changing my password stop a bot?

Because if a bot isn't using your password to gain access to your account, that means that somebody gained access to a secure part of the Yahoo servers. If that's the case, there is nothing you can do except wait for Yahoo to clean up their server. But this is unlikely.

What's more likely is, as greg said, somebody/something discovered your password and is simply logging onto your account.

It's a good idea to rotate all your passwords periodically to keep this kind of thing from happening. Alpha-numeric combinations are best, at least 6-7 characters long. The longer the better, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty fast as the # of characters increases.

[sftc]

Rideit,
Just wondering, did you just switch to the "new Yahoo Mail" with the unlimited memory?
I know someone else that thinks they are getting messed with after changing, so I wonder if they have a crack in the new set-up.

[fez]

They didn't crack your email.

They are spoofing the headers and using your email as a return address.

Change your password to be safe, but it probably won't make a difference. What will make a difference is them moving onto the next reply-to.

fixed that for you.

[bio-smear]

Thirded with Alpinedad and Fez. It happens a lot. I could use a simple smtp method to send an email "as" rideit@yahoo.com, the headers look the same. I've employed this in the past in a dishonest way, to combat dishonesty with an ex-girlfriend.

[splat]

That's what you get for cruising porn....
Your email ain't hacked. A spam distributer bought your e addy from a site with a harvest bot function.

You wanna know what it's like to have your email cracked? Read last month's account in Wired of what happened to the lead singer from Linkin Park when a stalking fan realized his password was 'Charlie', his middle name. It actually became a national security matter when it was discovered the stalker was sending emails out of a Los Alamos lab server. And about the only reason the stalker got caught.

[Platinum Pete]

Have you let Yahoo! know this is happening?
I work in the building with the tier 3 support for e-mail and they have some pretty crafty ways of getting things back on track. E-mail the help people at Yahoo Mail. That is one of our most covetted products, we do not let bad shit happen for too long once alerted.

[phUnk]

Have you let Yahoo! know this is happening?
I work in the building with the tier 3 support for e-mail and they have some pretty crafty ways of getting things back on track. E-mail the help people at Yahoo Mail. That is one of our most covetted products, we do not let bad shit happen for too long once alerted.

Check out what alpinedad and bio-smear said. They're right. There's nothing Yahoo is going to do about it either.

[Crass3000]

eer, maybe change your password?

Yep most likely just changing your password will do the trick. It's certainly worth a try. I had the same thing happen to me long ago and the password change worked fine. If there is some sort of keylogging software on your computer a good virus program would pick it up.

[rideit]

Well, I changed the password yesterday, and recieved 134 more overnight.
Now I am getting messages telling me that I am sending out spam.
Not quite sure what to do at this point...guess I will try to contact Yahoo.
My wife went to school in Japan with Jerry Yang, I guess I could give him a call, but I don't think he would want to hear about it!

[cj001f]

Yahoo could do with a few more people telling them they suck. Maybe then they'll fix something and they won't be freefalling anymore.

[Free Range Lobster]

That's what you get for cruising porn....
Your email ain't hacked. A spam distributer bought your e addy from a site with a harvest bot function.

Ding ding ding ding ding.

Spoofed address and headers.

Your e-mail wasn't "hijacked".

[jrbd]

You may want to abandon that account and get a new one somewhere. Of course, sometimes infected computers send emails with the return addresses spoofed to something from the owner's address book. This means that if you tell all your friends to update your email address, and one of them is the source of the spam with your return address, then it'll start happening again with the new address. But at least you will have learned something about the problem.

[splat]

Just make a message rule for returns in the subject line and have them go to your deleted items box.
I've had it happen to me and had jongs emailing me telling me they had caught me sending them a virus. It'll mellow out after a while...

[icanseeformiles(andmiles)]

question: are you using web-based mail (that is, using your email through an internet browser? Or, are you using an email client, such as Outlook Express - just as an horrible example?)

[phUnk]

Just make a message rule for returns in the subject line and have them go to your deleted items box.
I've had it happen to me and had jongs emailing me telling me they had caught me sending them a virus. It'll mellow out after a while...

rideit: When Splat starts giving you tech advice, you need to re-examine your ability to use a computer.

Especially when he's dead-on right twice in the same thread.

[splat]

I hate to say it, but I agree with phUnk.

[rideit]

OK, I'll Jong myself...what is a 'message rule', and how do I implement one?
(Step by step)

Gracias, oh wise wasters of bits n' bytes!

[The Dad]

Basically, a rule is a defined, automatic action that occurs based on some conditions. The simplest example is a vacation auto-reply.

[splat]

Tech Talk, biatch.














Open the message
Go to 'Message' on the Outlook menu bar.
Create Rule From Message.
Check 'Where the Subject Line Contains Specific Words'