I periodically receive email from folks that have a yahoo email account. I can tell from reading the email that this obviously was not sent by the yahoo account holder. These emails usually want me to click on a link for some lame reason.
It is apparent the account holder’s account has been hacked and this email is being sent to every address in their email contact list.
My advice: if you have a yahoo account, immediately change the password and abandon the account.
Get a new, FREE account at proton mail.
This advice also applies to hotmail account users. Lots of hacking going on there also.
If Yahoo! and Hotmail do not have protections against brute force password hacks, they are negligent in my opinion.
I know that for many of these services, they will lock you out after a small number of failed log-in attempts, but this is usually on a front-side browser interface. If they aren’t doing the same thing with pop/smtp/imap logins, they have really failed people.
The problem here is the business model.
Email holders aren’t their actual customers. Almost all yahoo and hotmail and gmail users pay no subscriptions.
All they are there for is selling ad space and mining data and selling it.
“My advice: if you have a yahoo account, immediately change the password and abandon the account.”
I’ve love to change the password but can’t get into the account to do that. I’d like to close it down but can’t get into it to do that, either.
It doesn’t seem safe to just abandon it willy nilly if they can link it down the line to a site that’s important. I don’t use it for email but to use it to sign in to other sites. That’s the big concern.
I have used Hotmail for 25 years. Never had a problem.
Unless you have an easily guessed password, how do you get hacked?
If you type in the wrong password three times, then you have to answer a couple of your secret questions before they let you type in the real password.
If you use a public computer, then you might be more at more at risk, but you still have to answer your secret questions before Hotmail allows you to change your password.
I am not a fan of Microsoft, but was using Hotmail before they acquired it.
Since I quit Yahoo and migrated to Hotmail I've NEVER had a problem with the account and almost never get any junk mail.
All mail accounts are subject to being hacked due to user laziness; Yahoo's is more vulnerable for other reasons exposed previously in this forum and elsewhere.
Hotmail/Outlook are not in that same category, though I am considering migrating once again for other reasons.