Web-based email heist?

[Steve Maskery]

Evening all,
Yes I know I used to be a software engineer but I'm so out of it now that I, like Manuel, know nothing.

SWMBO uses Yahoo as her email system, so her email is not kept on her laptop and neither is her address book.

A few days ago she had a few emails bounce back at her, ones she had not sent, and a reply from someone else in her address book saying NIce To Hear From You After So Long. That email contained a copy of the original.

The email was rubbish, along the lines of "Dear Friend, please click on this dodgy link". The original email is not on her laptop, I've done a thorough scan with Avast and nothing shows up. The conclusion to which I am drawn is that somehow her email account has been hijacked from without.

Her address book has disappeared, too. There were a dozen or so entries and all have vanished.

Is this possible and what are the implications? SWMBO doesn't do anything confidential by email, just a couple of girly friends and some general work stuff, but it is worrying all the same.

Can anyone educate me on what is happening? I was an expert on Windows 95.

Cheers
Steve

 

[wizer]

If she uses Yahoo then I assume that Yahoo can just restore it from their backup. Whether or not they will actually do this or not I'm not sure. You're bound to get an automated message about something unrelated. Indeed, any web based email system does not keep anything on the local computer. So if their system goes down, so does your email.

I use hotmail and I really should think about installing my own web based email software so I can do my own backups. I'm right in the middle of a big web job atm so maybe I'll tie it in with that.

 

[Jake]

The emails that look like bouncebacks are a common form of spam stuff designed to make you open the attachments. Dunno what has happened with the address book but 'delete the weird unknown stuff without opening the attachment' is obviously rule #1- not that helps much.

 

[Ironballs]

Was there not a virus doing the rounds a while back that hijacked your address book and emailed everyone in it without your knowledge? That version didn't do anything other than clog up servers with email traffic - think it might have been the love virus. This could be a modified version used by scammers.

Sounds like a full scan is on the cards

 

[TonyW]

While I do not have personal experience of this there does seem to be a lot of activity of this type with Yahoo mail.

I understand that deleted contacts may be able to be restored - They are stored in the Trash for a short period and then deleted permanently - you might be lucky if this has only happened recently

My concern now would be that your Yahoo username and password have been compromised and more of the same is likely to follow. I would suggest changing both and also even changing your email address.

Cheers
Tony

 

[Steve Maskery]

Thank you all for your input.

She isn't too bad at security really, even though she's not very tech, she does know about the dangers of opening anything odd. But yes, perhaps I should persuade her to change her email address.

Thank you all for your input.

Cheers
Steve

 

[wizer]

IMHO Hotmail is very very good at security. The junk filters do a very good job at eliminating phishing, ****, etc, etc. I'd never use a Outlook type program for my email. I use to many PC's in too many places to keep it all up to date.