As most of you already know, my e-mail was hacked on Sunday. There was evidently a worm that went through my online e-mail service at yahoo.com
I am including for you the response that came to me from yahoo help. My only copmplaint in all this is that Yahoo has no live help for problems with their e-mail. Everything has to be done by e-mail correspondence and I really dislike the fact that so many people have gone to that system. However, in today’s world even when you get a live person it is hard to get satisfaction with trouble situations. We really don’t live in a service (servant oriented) world any longer.
The best thing you can do is to back up your address book and anything that is important to you in the computer world so that you have what you need just in case. I did have the information backed up and for that I am thankful. It will take a while to have the time to restore everything. I want to also say that I have held my yahoo address for 10 plus years and this is the first problem I have ever had so I have no intention of switching. Web based e-mail is safer when dealing with viruses and they also follow you wherever you go, changing addresses, jobs or whatever. Yahoo goes with you.
Ronnie
Hello Ronnie,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.
It appears as though you have received one or more emails containing a
“worm” virus. These types of viruses spread themselves by mass sending
an email with an infected attachment to addresses found in an infected
computers address book, local files, etc. The virus hopes the infected
emails reach unsuspecting recipients and entice them to open the
attachment
thus infecting the recipients computer.
If you are concerned that you might have contracted a virus and you have
anti-virus software installed, we recommend that you make sure the
softwares virus definitions are updated and then scan your computer.
If you do not currently have anti-virus software installed on your
computer, you might want to consider obtaining this type of software.
Please be aware that Yahoo! Mail is a web-based email system and if
you’re checking your email through Yahoo!‘s website, simply viewing
email messages does not make your computer vulnerable to viruses — even
when attachments are present. This is because your email messages,
address book and other account information are stored on Yahoo!’s
servers rather than on your own computer.
However, should you choose to download an attachment by either opening
it or saving it to your computer, your computer becomes vulnerable to
computer viruses. The same is true of all files you download to your
computer (whether email attachments or not), so it is important that you
are careful when downloading attachments from both known and unknown
sources.
Yahoo! urges caution and recommends that you always choose to scan
attachments whenever this option is available. This will greatly reduce
your likelihood of experiencing trouble with computer viruses. If you
are a Yahoo! user, please know that Yahoo! Mail has implemented
aggressive anti-virus measures to protect our users from spreading or
contracting these types of viruses. Yahoo! employs virus scanning on
all inbound and outbound attachments to immediately detect viruses and
help prevent them from spreading any further.
If you have updated your anti-virus software, scanned your computer and
found that your system is clean, your computer is most likely not
infected, but rather is receiving a virus that is attempting to spread
itself through email. There is no way to stop the virus from attempting
to spread; however, if you are receiving multiple emails they should
eventually subside. Until these types of messages stop arriving to your
account, you may want to consider utilizing our filter feature to direct
these messages to a folder of your choosing. You can find more
information on how to use this feature at:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/manage/manage-06.html
If you use another email program, you may want to check to see if your
email program also has a filter feature you can use.
If you are interested in obtaining any information regarding the latest
viruses, please visit the virus encyclopedia at:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail.
Regards,
Gerry
Yahoo! Customer Care
60226531
For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit: