I honestly don't recall the last time I used my yahoo email, but changed my password. Just in case. :)

There was a breach a few months ago too. I don't send any important emails on Yahoo, I use the one on my internet provider.

I also never use the same password twice and my passwords are really long and include upper and lower cases numbers and spaces. I am sure it could be hacked but it would take longer.

I rarely check my email except to clear it out.

Thanks for the info

Thank you. I just changed mine. I hope I can remember it!

For everyone using AT&T as their internet provider, their email arrives through Yahoo!. AT&T U-verse uses Yahoo!. You can use a 3rd party emailer such as Thunderbird, however, all emails first arrives in a att/Yahoo! account and then is uploaded to your 3rd party email.

Best policy: change your password.

Strangely, I have not been notified by att about any hack attack. Did someone drop the ball?

Husband had to change his password.

Last night I decided to go in and change my password even though I seldom use the account. It would accept my password to log on so I requested a reset. I had it sent to my cell phone. When I tried to put in a new password, it told me it was too weak. I tried probably 50 password combinations of numbers, upper and lower case letters and symbols. Each time it told me the password was too weak.

Tried again this morning by sending the reset request to my backup email ... same thing happened even when I made a password the maximum 32 characters long. Now I don't know what to do. :-(

Linked is todays article from YAHOO News . . .

"Yahoo Inc. said in a blog post on its breach that "The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts' most recent sent emails."
* * * * * * * * *

In addition to any steps users decide to take with regard to their user name and password, users should immediately delete any e-mail message from someone you don't know.
Don't open e-mails from any contact unknown to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Yahoo News (AP)

FYI....

A very short time ago, a friend of mine was a victim of this particular hack at Yahoo. I was listed in her contact list and all I can say is that this "nasty" is virulent. I don't use any Yahoo product and rarely, if ever visit their website. She is the only email friend I have that uses their email and even though we don't converse on a daily basis, just being one of her contacts made me a victim.

I began to be barraged with unsavory mail...none of which I opened directly. But, no matter what protection I have on my system [and it's the best] I could not stop the onslaught. I suspect the reason being that I was not the addressee. The clever sender copied me rather than sending directly to my address. I tried every trick I knew to stop the mail...blocking IP #s, etc and nothing worked.

My only recourse to stop the action was to delete my own email account entirely and begin a new. I'd had the account for sixteen years with nary a problem. Deleting it felt like loosing an old friend.

Then I advised my friend to find another email program. Unfortunately, she didn't heed my advice and I expect she's been hit again. I insisted that she not put my new email address in her contact list so I may be safe this time around...but if not...the account I opened to continue conversing with her is what I consider a throw away account. I won't suffer if I have to close it quickly. Although...when I opened the new account to continue conversing with her...I made her promise not to list me as a contact anywhere on her system.

I relate this experience for those of you...who like Jodi...are having difficulty resetting a password...and strongly suggest that you find new non-Yahoo email programs. As the unwitting recipient of my friends computer infection...I had to change all my accounts, etc and it's a task I wouldn't want to repeat.

Anne

o.k. question.....my email is ________@Verizon.net It does not download onto my computer through outlook or any other program. It stays online. But when I click on my bookmark to open my email it says welcome to Verizon.webmail yahoo! mail.

Guess I should change my password?

Jodi..husband had the same problem. Said his password was too weak, then it was too similar to the last one(it wasn't). Finally six hours later , he got a new password. Actually one he tried earlier.

I'll try changing my password again some time this weekend when hopefully things calm down a little. I do need to keep the Yahoo account because it's how I get into the Yahoo birding groups I'm a member of.

anne_ct,

The experience you describe has happened to me too (as a recipient of emails) as a result of friend's/acquaintances having had their email accounts compromised. The perpetrator then bombs people in the address book with messages. FYI, this has happened to me with friends' email accounts from most of the major email providers.

The times it has happened, the blame was the account holder's. I know, each time I've asked "What was your password" and heard a reply "You know, it was 123456" or "abcdefg" or "password" or something like these.

Email addresses can be easily seen across the internet, and some bad guys use bots (software programs) to try to access accounts with iterative attempts using common passwords.

So, for these publicized incidents, the sponsors bear the blame. For the many others, it's your friends and mine who've caused the problems.