October 12th, 2009
The following is an important message from Mark Risher, Spam Czar for Yahoo! Mail, worldwide:
Keeping you safe while you’re online is a top priority for us here at Yahoo!. One important part of your online safety is making sure that nobody else can access your Yahoo! Mail account without your permission, and the best way to do that is to make sure you choose a good password and make sure nobody else knows it or can easily guess it.
know it can feel like a pain typing out a more detailed password, but none of us want to make it any easier for the bad guys.
My top advice is to be mindful of any Web page that requests your Yahoo! password. The #1 way people get their passwords stolen is by typing them into lookalike “phishing” web sites, pages that pretend to be Yahoo! or another trusted Web site but actually are run by the bad guys. Scrutinize carefully any page that requests your Yahoo! password. In addition:
- Make sure the Web page address doesn’t have any misspellings or extra words (e.g. http://www.yah000.com, http://www.yahoo-members.com, or http://www.yahoo.BadGuyEnterprises.com) in it. When it doubt, go straight to http://www.yahoo.com.au and log in from there.
- Be vigilant about anything that doesn’t look right on the page, such as typos, outdated content, or broken or missing pictures.
- Best idea: be sure to set up a customized “Sign-In seal” picture — instructions are located here — and never enter your password unless you see that picture on the page.
Here are a few more tips to help keep you safe online:
- Don’t use the same password on multiple sites. Your Yahoo! Mail account is important to you, so it deserves its own password. That way, if the unthinkable happens on another site, at least your Yahoo! mailbox remains secure.
- Never send your password over email. Yahoo! will never request your password from you in an e-mail; if you ever receive such a request, you should treat it as fraud. Do not pass “Go!” Instead immediately click the “Spam” button on that message.
- Protect yourself with a virus scanner. Another way passwords get stolen is from a virus that records your keystrokes. Don’t give the bad guys that option: There are a number of anti-virus companies that offer free versions or trial offers, including (in no particular order and with no specific endorsement implied) http://security.symantec.com , http://usa.kaspersky.com/downloads/free-virus-scanner.php, http://us.mcafee.com/root/downloads.asp?id=freeTrials, and http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html.
Unfortunately there is no silver bullet against these criminals and con-men, but hopefully these tips will help us all keep the bad guys at bay.
Mark Risher – Spam Czar, Yahoo! Mail
October 7th, 2009
In light of recent media reports regarding email accounts from various providers and their passwords being posted online, please read the following from Yahoo! Mail’s Program Manager, Andrew:
You may have heard or read about email accounts and their passwords being posted online. While I’ve read different versions of how the person(s) responsible was able to get the email account information, it was not a result of any insecurity at Yahoo! It looks to be a result of phishing attacks. Should you feel that one of your email accounts was affected by the recent publication, whether it is a Yahoo!, Hotmail or Gmail account, I would suggest changing your password as well as other account security information like secret questions and alternate email addresses.
We are aware that a limited number of Yahoo! IDs have been made public, it’s uncertain if any of those email/password combinations have resulted in any accounts being compromised. Online scams and phishing attacks are an ongoing and industry-wide issue and Yahoo! takes great effort to protect our users’ security.
We also have the following online resources that provide information and guidelines on email safety:
Our anti-spam site: http://au.antispam.yahoo.com/
With a phishing prevention sub-section: http://au.antispam.yahoo.com/phishing/
Our help pages: http://help.yahoo.com/l/au/yahoo7/mail/yahoomail/abuse/
And of course, I’ve posted a number of articles about online safety to this blog: Spotting phishing emails, how to spot online scams, avoiding the lottery scams, and account recovery help
Here are a couple FAQs that provide additional information:
Have accounts been compromised because of this?
We are unable to confirm whether accounts have been compromised at this time. However, we strongly suggest that consumers take caution in securing their email and other online accounts by regularly changing their passwords, and updating account security information.
What do I do if I think my account has been compromised?
You should change your password immediately. Also, if you are unable to enter your account, you can take steps to recover it here: https://edit.yahoo.com/forgotroot
We take online security seriously at Yahoo! We strive to make you and your Yahoo! account as safe as possible. Of course if you have any questions or issues with your account, please contact our Customer Care team.
Please rest assured that Yahoo!7 will never email you asking for your password. If you receive such an email that looks like it’s from us, please be sure to pass it on via this form.
The following blog posts, that we have previously written on different security issues, may also be of interest to you:
Email safely,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team
August 25th, 2009
Following hot on the heels of the announcement regarding changes to Yahoo!7 Mail, we are pleased to announce that the Yahoo!7 Messenger 10 Beta launch is also today!
The following announcement comes Sarah Bacon, Product Manager for Yahoo! Messenger:
Warm up your webcams because the all-new Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta has arrived! This latest release is full of great new features. Without further ado, here’s what you’ll find inside:
High-quality video calls
We’ve completely redesigned our 1:1 webcam feature (under the hood too). Now you can make a high-quality video call to a friend with synched audio, right in the IM window. Features include the ability to swap video windows, position the video windows side-by-side, mute the call or place it on hold. You can even go full-screen with your video call. To get started, click the new “Video Call” button in the IM window.
Note that the friend you video call has to also be on Yahoo! Messenger 10. And these video enhancements are just for 1:1 video calls; broadcasting your webcam to multiple viewers (with no audio) has not changed.
New “Y! Updates” view of your contact list
People are busy these days, doing all sorts of interesting things online. To help you keep up with your friends, we added an alternate view of your contact list that shows a real-time stream of their updates, including Messenger status message changes. If they’ve opted-in to share their updates via Yahoo!, you’ll be able to see what they’re saying on Twitter, listening to on last.fm, and more.
Just like in the regular contact list view, you can easily IM a friend, start a video call and more, right from the Yahoo! Updates view. Or use the contact action bar to quickly find a friend without switching tabs.
We also added additional features for how and when you see your friends’ updates. When a new update comes in, a “toast” alert will pop up in the lower right corner of your screen. If you want to disable these, go to Messenger > Preferences > Yahoo! Updates. You can turn alerts on and off and even update preferences by contact or by type of update.
Download Yahoo!7 Messenger 10 Beta.
Find more to chat about
Within the new “Yahoo! Updates” view, you’re sure to find more to talk about with your friends. To make it easy, we added a hover menu that lets you quickly IM a friend about their update. When you do, the update appears inline in the conversation window, so when you start your IM with “I can’t believe you said that!”, your friend will know what you’re talking about. Note that your friend needs to also be on Yahoo! Messenger 10 to see the update inline.
New ways to sort your contacts
We added a couple new ways to organise your contact list. First is by recent activity which will list your friends with the most recent updates at the top of your list. We also added the ability to sort by availability, so if you usually show all contacts in your list whether they’re online or not, this will help bring the online friends to the top. Sort options are located in the drop down menu on the right side of the “Contacts” tab.
New icons in the IM window
We also added new icon designs to the toolbar in the IM window, and you’ll also find specific buttons for video calls and voice calls.
As with any new release, we welcome your feedback about what’s working well for you and what’s not. After using Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta for a bit, go to the Help menu and select “Send Feedback” to get started.
Download Yahoo!7 Messenger 10 Beta.
We hope you enjoy it!
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
Wow, that’s a lot of new features!
Our team here in Australia, and the other Messenger teams across the world, have worked long and hard on the new version of Messenger. We hope you find the new Yahoo!7 Messenger experience better than ever 
Be sure to come back and tell us your favourite feature!
Happy chatting,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Messenger Team
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