Hey have you heard of the term called ‘phising’? Here’s a definition:

Phishing is when a fraudster sends you an email or link, claiming to be from a legitimate company. They’ll often send you to a fake website they’ve created, and trick you into entering your password and personal information. You’re then an easy target for account theft.

I know of a couple of people who were ‘phised.’ I noticed it particularly happens on Yahoo Messenger. An automated software will send you a link, something like this:

yahoo.somefakewebsite.com/config/login/

… and when you click on it, you will see a site exactly like Yahoo’s own Photo’s site (this one is the actual site). You, thinking that it was a link to a photo album, would put in your Yahoo username and password and get some sort of website error message. In the meantime, your actual password and username has been saved in the phiser’s database. Once they have that, they’ll automatically login your Yahoo Messenger, and resend the links again to all the people in your Yahoo buddy list. It goes on and on until they get tons of personal data.

It’s annoying. Once you know you’ve been phised, you should immediately change your username and password. Unfortunately, your friends in your Yahoo buddy list may already have been victimized.

It seems Yahoo has done something about this. They now have a way to protect from Yahoo Phising Attacks using Personalized Sign-In Seals. How does it work?

  1. First, go to http://protect.login.yahoo.com/
  2. Press the start button
  3. Select A Sign Seal.
  4. Viola! You have your own Personal Seal. This works only on the computer where you saved your seal.

Pictures! You say? Here are the screenshots:

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