[500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Questions on how we spend our money and our time - consumer goods and services, home and vehicle, leisure and recreational activities
boater07
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Re: What are you YAHOOERS doing?? [due to security breach]

Post by boater07 »

I guess this issue still has me baffled.
With only a Yahoo email account, what can be obtained from that since it has no personal info.
About all I gave them is nickname and sex. I suppose, hackers could send me mail and try to trick me.
Also banks always ask for email address and a hacker would know where I have accounts but nothing more.

I do have some non/financial sites where the email is the user name.

Should I be loosing any sleep over this :?
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LadyGeek
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by LadyGeek »

I merged boater07's thread into here. The combined thread is in the Personal Consumer Issues forum (computer security).

As I noted on the first page, Bogleheads who use the Local chapters on Yahoo Groups should change their passwords.
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teacher
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

I don't remember if I gave Yahoo security questions or my BD. How can I find out, and how can I change them if I did?
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Re: What are you YAHOOERS doing?? [due to security breach]

Post by jchef »

boater07 wrote:I guess this issue still has me baffled.
With only a Yahoo email account, what can be obtained from that since it has no personal info.
About all I gave them is nickname and sex. I suppose, hackers could send me mail and try to trick me.
Also banks always ask for email address and a hacker would know where I have accounts but nothing more.

I do have some non/financial sites where the email is the user name.

Should I be loosing any sleep over this :?
Do you have shopping accounts (such as Amazon or Best Buy) that use the yahoo email address as a log in?

If so, they can go to those websites, say they forget their password and a temporary password will likely then be sent to the Yahoo email account. They can then log on that shopping website, make a purchase, say it's a gift and ask for it to be sent to a different address. If you have your credit card info stored on the shopping website, then the purchase may go through.
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Re: What are you YAHOOERS doing?? [due to security breach]

Post by jchef »

wander wrote:
serbeer wrote:Can only affect those who did not change password in the past 2 years, since the breach occurred in 2014.
Actually, they stole all security questions so even if you have changed your password recently they still can reset your password. You need to also change your security questions.
Yahoo has invalidated all of the security questions (and it doesn't appear they are allowing you to add new security questions right now). So if you tell Yahoo you forgot your password, Yahoo isn't going to ask you the security questions.

But if you use the exact same security questions on another website, then it's possible they can be used there.
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goingup
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by goingup »

teacher wrote:I don't remember if I gave Yahoo security questions or my BD. How can I find out, and how can I change them if I did?
Go into your Yahoo account and go to the Security section. Disable security questions. I did this today and saw the 2 security questions I had listed.
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VictoriaF
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by VictoriaF »

Today I went to my Yahoo account and changed the password. There were no security questions associated with my account.

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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by LadyGeek »

Thanks, I didn't know you could disable the security questions. They're disabled now. (I had changed my password earlier.)
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by jebmke »

VictoriaF wrote:Today I went to my Yahoo account and changed the password. There were no security questions associated with my account.

Victoria
I deactivated my security questions in the account info (or setup -- whatever they call it). I also changed the backup email and turned on two-step verification.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
frequentT
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by frequentT »

Changed my password today. Changing security questions were not an option. Fortunately, my old password was used only at yahoo.

Curiously I received a phishing email last week that threatened my yahoo account would be cancelled if I did not log in by clicking link. I have had several of these phishing email in the past year.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Mel Lindauer »

I've been using two-factor authorization for some time now, even before the word about the hack job got out. I definitely plan to continue using it.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

I wasn't aware there is an option to turn on two-step factor, where is that toggle?
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Mel Lindauer »

Grt2bOutdoors wrote:I wasn't aware there is an option to turn on two-step factor, where is that toggle?
Click on your name and then "Account Info" and the option is under "Account Security".
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

^^ Thanks, Mel.
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teacher
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

Thank you, goingup.
I changed my password yesterday. Just now, I eliminated the security questions with your help, but found an answer to them was the same as my new password, so I changed it again. :shock:

Does anyone think using yahoo email for Google Docs login is a problem?
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Mel Lindauer »

teacher wrote:Thank you, goingup.
I changed my password yesterday. Just now, I eliminated the security questions with your help, but found an answer to them was the same as my new password, so I changed it again. :shock:

Does anyone think using yahoo email for Google Docs login is a problem?
FWIW, I'd handle each one separately.
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soboggled
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by soboggled »

A big fuss over nothing, comparatively speaking.
Probably over half the websites we use are hacked (maybe including this one), just hope you are lost in the crowd. If they can penetrate government sites, they can penetrate most private sites, though it's bad business for the sites to admit it.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Constant Chaos »

I have a very old yahoo account that I never used except to sign into a message board they hosted. I have not signed in in years. When I signed in today, it said "Due to suspicious activity we need to send you a security key at this email address _____@___________.______" That email address was VERY old and was with a server we no longer use and it no longer exists. So......am I safe to just leave my yahoo account "frozen" like this?? If not, does anyone have a recommendation for what to do next?
mouses
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by mouses »

Sheepdog wrote: The stolen data includes users' names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and security questions for verifying an accountholder's identify.
Where are the hackers getting data like telephone numbers and dates of birth from yahoo? I haven't given yahoo any of that information, at least not correctly.

Unlike a poster above, I don't reuse passwords and security answers from site to site.

This is pretty much a non-event in my universe, since I don't use yahoo email; email is stored on my pc via thunderbird, so the hackers can't rummage through it without targeting my personal pc, or sitting on a mail server and catching stuff as it goes by.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by LadyGeek »

^^^ I also use thunderbird for email. I think you're missing the point that email sits on the server until it's read.

Yes, it's deleted off the server when thunderbird grabs it. Until then, it's on the server.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by jebmke »

The Yahoo mess has really hosed up my Yahoo mail. I have changed the PW twice now. Thunderbird still authenticates to the POP server with the first change (did not ask to change the second time) but the outgoing (SMTP) is DOA. The Android devices are fat dumb and happy with the first change. They keep authenticating with new PW #1 even if I reboot the devices.

In the long run I am going to migrate all the activity off Yahoo and suspend the account. It isn't my primary email address but some people still have me in their address book with the Yahoo account. I might just create something new on another service and forward the mails to that address and shut off all access except web access. My guess is that if I deleted the server on Android and reinstalled it would ask for the newest PW. Not cool that Yahoo accepts PW #1 in the meantime.
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Re: Yahoo says hackers stole info in 500 million user accounts

Post by nedsaid »

squirm wrote:Half a billion is a lot of accounts, didn't know they even had that many users, unless maybe wells Fargo was handling their accounts :mrgreen:
Got a good chuckle out of that one!
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VictoriaF
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by VictoriaF »

Just as I finished reading the latest posts in this thread, I noticed the Yahoo bot crawling the Forum. I wonder what it is trying to learn these days.

Victoria
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beyou
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by beyou »

There was an excellent quiz and article on the broader topic of data security impact in nytimes :

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... -quiz.html

I have made it policy not to give accurate data, such as birthdays, to companies like yahoo. They dont really need to know much about me to provide email services, so why give it to them ? If form fields like birthday are required, give them a date, just not your date. Banks I give the real date. So when a bank asks dob, yahoo hackers have the wrong date.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by TT »

delete
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by TT »

delete
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VictoriaF
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by VictoriaF »

TT wrote:
VictoriaF wrote:Today I went to my Yahoo account and changed the password. There were no security questions associated with my account.

Victoria

Can you tell me where the security questions would be located? I do not see any in my account info or in the account security. Does that mean I did not enter any?
Thanks
I have not seen any place to enter security questions either. My assumption is that I never had them in my Yahoo account.

Victoria
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Re: Yahoo says hackers stole info in 500 million user accounts

Post by oldcomputerguy »

jebmke wrote:
littlebird wrote:O? Is that site hacker proof? Guaranteed? When they hack that site, they'll have all your data. And I'm sure some group is working on that right now. No thanx.
Stand alone encrypted data base. Store it offline. Crack proof and alzheimers proof - as long as someone else has a copy of the key. Memory is probably the worst place to store passwords or answers to security questions.
In my case it''s a paper document stored in the family safe. I challenge any hacker to download that.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by mouses »

LadyGeek wrote:^^^ I also use thunderbird for email. I think you're missing the point that email sits on the server until it's read.

Yes, it's deleted off the server when thunderbird grabs it. Until then, it's on the server.
Yes, but only a small amount of email at a time, maybe twenty messages. It's not like they can rummage through the embarrassingly large number of emails I have on my pc. Unless the hackers are sitting on the server for a long long time undetected.
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pennstater2005
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by pennstater2005 »

I change my passwords quite a bit now mostly because I can never remember them.
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Re: What are you YAHOOERS doing?? [due to security breach]

Post by inbox788 »

boater07 wrote:I guess this issue still has me baffled.
With only a Yahoo email account, what can be obtained from that since it has no personal info.
About all I gave them is nickname and sex. I suppose, hackers could send me mail and try to trick me.
Also banks always ask for email address and a hacker would know where I have accounts but nothing more.

I do have some non/financial sites where the email is the user name.

Should I be loosing any sleep over this :?
I don't know if this is a coincidence or related, but my Yahoo email account was compromised. Friends on my contact list received email from "me" (had my name, but some 3rd party email address). Wasn't anything harmful as far as we could tell, but this could be just the beginning.

Needless to say, I changed my password. (and I'm changing my passwords elsewhere as well) I also ran a virus and malware scan on my computer and it came up clear.


Also, I looked at recent activity, and in the last 30 days, there was no suspicious activity. (is there a way to see more than recent?) The account was a seldom used account, and the last email compromised was months ago, so they may have been holding on to this data for a while now.

So far, I haven't heard from any reports whether contact lists or email themselves were compromised from their servers, or if the hackers had to log into my account to get my information (somehow figured out my hashed password).

The only suspicious thing is that my My Account/Preferences/Locations and Languages/Favorites shows a bunch of international cities (which I haven't been to). Does anyone know what this list is? It's not where Yahoo thinks I'm logging in from is it? Because if that's what this is, then there's people from around the world that have been in my account. Scary!
teacher
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

TT wrote:
Log into your account and in the upper right hand corner you will see you name -click on account info and it will display any personal info you entered.
I would advise opening account security and initiating the " two step verification" process also. FYI when you do this and you clear you history Yahoo will not recognize your computer and you will have to enter a code they will text you to gain access to your email. I just staring using this and it works fine.
Thank you, TT.
Is it recommended to add a recovery email address?
Also, by "clear your history", do you mean search engine history (Safari), or is there a Yahoo history?
If the latter, I can't find it.
miles monroe
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Re: Yahoo says hackers stole info in 500 million user accounts

Post by miles monroe »

goingup wrote:I'm batting a thousand this week. Wells Fargo customer with Yahoo email. :|
me too, although the yahoo account is only used as the required email account for facebook and comcast.

but on the other hand, i also got 100 shares of WFC in my play money account. :(
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

Inbox788 wrote:
The only suspicious thing is that my My Account/Preferences/Locations and Languages/Favorites shows a bunch of international cities (which I haven't been to). Does anyone know what this list is? It's not where Yahoo thinks I'm logging in from is it? Because if that's what this is, then there's people from around the world that have been in my account. Scary!
Scary indeed. At the expense of revealing my ignorance regarding online security, here's what happened to me. I went into Yahoo Personal Info/Account Settings and superimposed on my avatar is a folder icon. I clicked on it and my entire hard drive showed up. Without consulting my young son who later explained the HD access was a way to upload an avatar image, I started searching for a Yahoo customer support number because I assumed other's could access my HD the same way. I couldn't find a customer service phone number within the Yahoo site, so I did a search and found a link with an 800 number for "Yahoo Customer Service". I called it and they asked for my email, name and BD. I gave them the first too, but not the BD because by the third question, I was beginning to suspect they were not legit. Next, I was told I had been hacked by someone in Russia and they could secure my account for $149. The bells went off, and I said, "I don't want to sound rude, but THIS sounds like a scam." SILENCE. He hung up on me. So, I gave away my Yahoo email and my name. Hopefully, it is not enough to do harm. I'm wondering if I should ditch my Yahoo email address altogether or change it or ignore the fact a scammer has it. Suggestions are very much appreciated.

The next morning, I went back to the link that proved to be a scam and the account was closed. The same phone number was used as a customer service number for HP, AT&T, AOL, Comcast etc. Those links had closed accounts as well.
Now, if I go to the bogus Yahoo Customer Service link, it says:
"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."
And if I check on the HP, AT&T, AOL, Comcast "help sites" with this phone number, they are back in business.
After much searching on the Yahoo site, I discovered, Yahoo does NOT have a Customer Service number. Any help is done online, which is problematic to me since I have no way of knowing who has access to my inquiries regarding security.
Last edited by teacher on Thu Oct 06, 2016 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
teacher
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

By the way, I would like to change my email address for the Bogleheads website from Yahoo to Gmail. How is that done?
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Duckie
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by Duckie »

teacher wrote:I would like to change my email address for the Bogleheads website from Yahoo to Gmail. How is that done?
Click on your name/avatar in the upper right corner of this page >> User Control Panel >> Profile >> Edit account settings. Change your email, enter your password, and submit.
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Re: [500 million Yahoo accounts hacked, what should you do?]

Post by teacher »

THANKS, Duckie!
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