Yahoo Accounts Vulnerable to Hacking – Why and How to Protect Yourself

Good condensed advice.

Sent to you by Roleigh via Google Reader: Yahoo Accounts Vulnerable to
Hacking – Why and How to Protect Yourself via ResourcesForLife.com by
gregorypauljohnson on 2/5/13



There’s a flurry of articles being written about the current Yahoo
security vulnerability that allows user accounts to be easily hacked.
The original research for this discovery is provided by a Bitdefender
report.

Summary. If you are a Yahoo user and mistakenly click on a malicious
link, you could be taken to a page with malicious code that hijacks
your Yahoo account by stealing your cookies (confidential login session
information). Once your account is hijacked, it’s used to send out spam
to other Yahoo users in an attempt to hack their accounts in the same
way.

Recovery. If your account has been hacked, change your password.

Prevention. Follow these steps for greater security with Yahoo and
other services:

- Avoid Links. Be skeptical of all emails that contain only a link.
Often such emails don’t have a subject line.
- Logout. Always logout of Yahoo (and any other sites) before exploring
the web further.
- Delete Cookies. Frequently delete all cookies to reduce the chances
of having them stolen. Deleting cookies will cause all sites to require
a login.
- Use Multiple Browsers. If you’re primarily visiting safe websites and
don’t want to login every time, you can use one browser for visiting
your important online accounts, then use another browser to explore
unknown sites.
- Change passwords frequently. There are thousands of stolen usernames
and passwords available for purchase. It takes a while for these to get
into the hands of the people (or machines) who exploit them. Even if
you don’t think your account has been hacked, changing your password is
a good preventative measure.
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