Dear Portal (like Yahoo and other web based e-mail providers):<\/p>\n
Recently on one of my junk* e-mail accounts I received an e-mail from a friend that told a well-woven tale of woe.\u00a0\u00a0 The gist of it was she was traveling abroad, was mugged, lost all her money, communication devices, identification, and was in desperate need of help ($$$) to return to her native land.\u00a0 This superbly crafted literary tragedy appeared to come from my friend\u2019s e-mail account (at your portal) with all the fixings to make it look legitimate.\u00a0 It turns out someone hacked (cracked) my friend\u2019s account on your portal, looked through their e-mails for a writing style, and then sent out these fictitious little goodies.<\/p>\n
Should I blame you that my friend\u2019s e-mail account was hacked?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure she had a password that was easy to crack and she never changed it. \u00a0\u00a0Still, did you insist she have a more complex password and that she change it regularly?\u00a0 Maybe it was an e-mail she received that made it look like it was from your portal, which sent her to a fake site where she entered her password?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 I suppose that\u2019s the reason for the image\/challenge question idea that I see popping up here and there.<\/p>\n
Anyway, although the e-mail was very suspicious, and although I\u2019m fairly computer savvy, I replied to the e-mail (no money \u2013 just sincere wishes for a good outcome).\u00a0 Who knows what would have transpired should I have had some way of helping?\u00a0 I\u2019d like to think I would have figured out that it was a scam as it went along.\u00a0 And lest you think, no harm no foul, I beg to differ.\u00a0 This caused me a great deal of emotional distress (no not the suing kind) as I was very worried for my friend.<\/p>\n
My friend never answered me, so I e-mailed her directly and she recounted the hacking story.\u00a0 I then went back to the original e-mail and looked it over thoroughly.\u00a0 Yes, it came from her account \u2013 well, you said it was genuine in the headers.\u00a0 Yes, it used her e-mail signature, and language comparable to hers, but the reply-to address was slightly different.\u00a0 When looked at closely an \u2018m\u2019 in her e-mail address was replaced \u2018rn \u2013 r n (R N \u2013 shown here in upper case for clarity).\u2019\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this trick before, and knew to look for it, but it never occurred to me that my friend\u2019s e-mail account would be hacked and used in this manner.<\/p>\n
To my point, please dear Portal, ye who were once mighty and powerful, please advise people when the reply-to address is different than the sending\/received-from address.\u00a0 If I had been advised of that, I would have known something was definitely wrong.\u00a0 You know, it\u2019s called Phishing.<\/p>\n
Signed,<\/p>\n
A Concerned Web Browser (not to be confused with Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, or Safari)<\/p>\n
*I call it junk because I get lots of junk mail there and give it out first where ever possible<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Portal (like Yahoo and other web based e-mail providers): Recently on one of my junk* e-mail accounts I received an e-mail from a friend that told a well-woven tale of woe.\u00a0\u00a0 The gist of it was she was traveling … Continue reading