Someone tried to steal my password for my yahoo email account
By bostonphil
@bostonphil (4459)
United States
June 6, 2012 11:05am CST
I got an email alert from yahoo this morning that someone tried to recover my password, as they put it, soon after midnight. It was not me. This criminal claimed to have lost "their" password. They were asked to answer my secret questions. They could not. Lucky for me.
I now better understand the reasons for having a strong password but also having secret questions and answers that no one but myself would know.
If someone knows your email, anyone can go to that address and claim that they lost their password. And try to get your password.
I better appreciate strong passwords and secret questions and answers.
3 people like this
4 responses
@jdyrj777 (6528)
• United States
7 Jun 12
Not long ago i had recieved a email saying my payment to yahoo was late and if i didnt pay right away my account would be deleted. Lol!!! Doesnt the whole world know yahoo accounts are free??? I marked the email as scam. And i still have my account.
1 person likes this
@bostonphil (4459)
• United States
7 Jun 12
I have had scammy emails supposedly coming from yahoo which I figured out was scam. The one yesterday sounded genuine but now I wonder if it was a scam that I fell for. I guess that time will tell. There is no way to send yahoo an email and ask if the email sent me was for real or a hoax.
@insurectus (334)
• Philippines
7 Jun 12
Yahoo webmail does have the option to check the complete mail headers.
From there, you can analyze if it really came from yahoo. Email spoofing is very common nowadays. Or you may also see something like yah0o.com instead of yahoo.com.
1 person likes this
@chan2zexy (508)
• Philippines
6 Jun 12
Email hackers are really crazy. I have also experienced the same before. You are right, strong security questions and password must be used. Something that they wouldn't even think of as your password and answer.
@bostonphil (4459)
• United States
7 Jun 12
No one could possibly guess my security questions and answers. The problem with a really strong password is that I often forget or lose it or sometimes, I can not keep up with them all.
@PointlessQuestions (15397)
• United States
6 Jun 12
Good that you were alerted, Bostonphil. I've had junk sent to other people from my email address that I didn't send.. it's also happened to friends of mine where I get junk from them that they didn't sign. But to my knowledge they were not able to get in and steal my account.
1 person likes this
@bostonphil (4459)
• United States
7 Jun 12
To be honest, when I got the email from yahoo this morning, I wondered if the email was really sent from yahoo or if it was a phishing email. I did go ahead and change my security questions.
