Hoax Warnings


	Alphabetical Index

NAME:	Yahoo! Service Systems Overload hoax
ALIAS:	Yahoo Help Desk hoax

A fake Yahoo Service Systems message appeared in April, 2000, which instructed Yahoo users to re-send their ID and password to an e-mail address belonging to a hacker. The original fake message looks like this:

 From: Help Desk
 Addresses: <systems_tech_help_center@yahoo.com>
 Subject: Important Message From The Yahoo! Team
 To: < yahoo address was entered here >

 Due to an overload in the Yahoo! Service Systems, we regret to
 inform our users that our System Bots have been malfunctioning.
 As a result of this occurance, personal information of Yahoo!
 Users may, unfortunately, be erased.  To ensure User Safety and
 to avoid the occurance of account deletion, we need to
 re-process up-to-date information into our computer bots.  If
 information as followed is not provided by April 25th, we regret
 to inform you that your Account may be deleted.

 Please fill in the required information below:

 User ID:
 Password:

 We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

 Sincerely,
 The Administrators @ Yahoo! Help Desk

A hacker wannabe had created a fake Yahoo Help Desk account on Yahoo server and the purpose of this message was to collect Yahoo IDs and passwords from unsuspecting Yahoo users. The abuse was reported to Yahoo and their response is shown below:

 Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 08:59:21 -0700
 To: < yahoo address >
 Subject: Re: Important Message From The Yahoo! Team
 From: "mail-abuse@yahoo-inc.com" <mail-abuse@yahoo-inc.com>
 Reply-to: "mail-abuse@yahoo-inc.com" <mail-abuse@yahoo-inc.com>

 Thank you very much for reporting this incident to Yahoo!
 Customer Care.

 In this particular case, we have identified the Yahoo! address
 used in connection with the unwanted email message. We have
 taken appropriate action as per our Terms of Service (TOS).

 In the future, if you receive an unwanted email message that
 appears to originate from a Yahoo! Mail account, please forward
 the message with the full Internet headers directly to us at:

 abuse@yahoo.com

 Thank you,
 Yahoo! Customer Care

When you browse the Internet, it is not advisable to reveal any of your personal information, your login names or passwords. If you get an e-mail requesting your account information or any kind of personal data, please ignore it and inform the abuse department of your service provider.