my girlfriend got her yahoo account hacked. suggestions?

[c1sc0m4n]

Stay out of chatrooms, unless you use a client. Don't click on an adult profile or photo bucket, where you have to put in your username and password. And lastly, GET RID OF THE YAHOO ACCOUNT!!!

Tim

[nihil]

A WORD OF ADVICE TO EVERYONE WITH A FREE E-MAIL ACCOUNT:

Just try this little test:

1. Create a shortcut or icon to your e-mail provider

2. Open your account

3. Mess around with your mail then click the little "x" in the top right corner of the screen.

4. Click on the icon or shortcut..........................

Does it bring your account back up?

If it does, then you are vulnerable to "session hijack"!

5. Try the same with logging out from the application.

6. Try the same with clearing your cookies first.

7. If you can re-open a session, see what you can do. Naturally you will be able to read, move, delete and send mail.............. can you change the password?

It can be quite an eye opener

If you do not log out properly and clear your cookies and/or your e-mail provider doesn't close your account when you log out, you are at risk. I have been horrified how long some of them will leave a session that you haven't closed for........ it could be days

[c1sc0m4n]

Also, I personally do NOT check the "Remember Me" in the email username page itself, and I use Firefox, and I choose to NOT remember me there also. This makes me enter my username and password every time. I also have any "auto-complete" disabled. As Nihil says, I always clear my cookies on a regular basis.

[nihil]

Hey, Ciscoman, FireFox gives you the options of clearing private data on exit, and you can select the same option out of the "tools". I think those are pretty good options.

Hey I am no browser fanboy, but that just seems good to me?

[Aardpsymon]

I'm not too worried about auto complete and the browser remembering the password since I am the only one who uses this PC and if it gets stolen then my e-mail passwords are the least of my worries. (For credit card sites I do tell it to forget passwords)

Refering to the original post - its bad practice to store activation e-mails or other e-mails with passwords. Better to write them down than store them in your e-mail.