Fake Yahoo site?

[latourdumoine]

This box popped up on my laptop saying the site might be fake, something to that effect. What are the signs to look out for? And what can happen if you log into your email anyway? I mainly use that email for forums and mass notifications of local events going on, so it's not my primary email.

If this sounds stupid, forgive me. Computers and I have a truce, we generally don't antagonize each other too much, but we don't claim to know everything about each other either. :) Thanks.

[Dannica]

If you have any doubt about what website you are on the safest thing to do is close that browser window. Open a new one and enter www.yahoo.com (http://www.yahoo.com) into location bar (top left of your browser) and then follow the link from that page to your mail.

In terms of what can go wrong if you are somehow on a site that looks like Yahoo, but isn't, is they can capture your userid and password. Which is bad if you use that same password elsewhere -- such as on Paypal.

A common technique for stealing userids and passwords is to send someone an email alert with a link to a fake website. People go to the fake website and enter their userid and passwords. In general don't follow links from email to websites where they are suggesting you need to login.

Hope this helps. I could provide more pointers if we were looking at a computer screen together.

[Maryn]

I'm no expert, but my first thought was not that you're at a fake Yahoo but that the pop-up is malware attempting to get your real account information from you by making you think you are.

Maryn, just planting the thought

[latourdumoine]

Thanks Dannica and Maryn.

If you have any doubt about what website you are on the safest thing to do is close that browser window. Open a new one and enter www.yahoo.com (http://www.yahoo.com) into location bar (top left of your browser) and then follow the link from that page to your mail.

In terms of what can go wrong if you are somehow on a site that looks like Yahoo, but isn't, is they can capture your userid and password. Which is bad if you use that same password elsewhere -- such as on Paypal.


A common technique for stealing userids and passwords is to send someone an email alert with a link to a fake website. People go to the fake website and enter their userid and passwords. In general don't follow links from email to websites where they are suggesting you need to login.

Hope this helps. I could provide more pointers if we were looking at a computer screen together.
It does help, hugely. That's what I did initially, type yahoo into my browser. Didn't get any weird emails requesting links. I think my main concern was that it would start sending out emails to my contacts in there. I have about three people in the address book there, since I mainly use that account for web stuff and newsletters from schools etc. I need someone to coach me through PayPal at some point, so I'm not using that. I like thinking up new passwords for different things so I'm safe there :) (and believe me, that's a huge relief).

Didn't get any emails asking for links, so maybe I was overreacting, but you did put my mind to rest.

You mean looking at the same screen via remote something? Someone I know got me to install some software so he could take a look. If that's what you meant.