What does it mean when your account has been compromised?

Yahoo account has a worm- and how to contact yahoo.?

• I have a yahoo account that apparently got a worm or something. I dont know how because I have not opened any suspicious emails or clicked any links. I go on this email account daily and check my emails, but since it is the one I give out to everyone who requires or asks for an email.... I get a ton of stuff that I dont need. But I do go in several times a day, mostly from my iphone... and check and delete email. Since I dont enter a password in every time... it stays open on my phone via the mobile app.... is that what could have compromised my account? The funny thing is, as soon as I found out these emails went out, I changed my password at home and emailed all of my contacts to tell them not to click links that I am sending until further notice. However, ANOTHER email went out AFTER I changed my password. I changed my password on my desktop computer at home. One that I rarely use to access the internet. Does this mean my account irrevocably compromised and I am going to have to close this account? I hate to do that because I have had the account for about 20 years and have never had a problem before. Also... it irritates me that when you go look in the help thing from the yahoo site, it brings up a list of previously asked questions. Or faq topics. I DO understand that they want you to try the other stuff first before you bother them because they would get SO many questions every day. But when you click on the "Still cant find the answer" button that says contact us.... it just leads you back to the help topics. It never leads to a form to contact them. It is a never ending circle. HELP!!!!

• Answer:

  (Direct contact methods are in the last paragraph of #1, but you can take the other steps without needing to contact them.) This has been happening to both Yahoo and Hotmail accounts, but even more so recently. You may have opened an infected mail or an attachment. Your address may have been found on someone else's infected computer. If the mail goes to your Contacts list or you receive Mailer Daemon bounce-backs, you have had your account hacked temporarily - all they wanted was your address list. The mails will stop when they move on to spam other victims. OR, they found your address in someone else's account and are 'spoofing' or faking it to send spam. Deleting your account or Contacts List will NOT stop this spam - once the spammers have the address, they will continue to use it for a while. Spam sent to your Contacts will also stop in a while, but it is annoying. Yahoo's advice is to change your password, but there is more to do than just that. 1. Check that the alternate e-mail address is still yours, under Options, Mail Options, Account Information, then change it! (so the hacker will not be notified of the change). Then change both your password AND your secret questions and answers. Make them unique and long, strong ones with mixed characters! (*** Changing your password also deletes the cookie which apparently inserts that sly trojan address grabber. ***) If you used this password for other accounts, change them too - make every one different. Make the password longer than 8 characters, with mixed symbols. Usually, this is all you need to do, although mail will still be sent in the name of the old account for a while. For a Yahoo account, you can change your password at https://edit.yahoo.com/config/change_pw. If you can no longer access your account, you can get a new password at https://edit.yahoo.com/forgotroot/. If you still can’t access your account after going through the “Forgot Your Password” process, you may contact the Customer Care team for assistance. Click Help, then Customer Care, then Live Chat - it make take a while, but a human answers! (If the page loads slowly, refresh it, or click the F5 key.) You will be asked several questions to verify that you are the owner of the account. This is the direct link: http://help.yahoo.com/contact/index?locale=en_US&y=PROD_ACCT&page=contact&pir=OHB4REJibUkt6bK7vVNrbDnlB5cGQPDyItkol.kkunQv0daledh2WTkb.tMreHIbu05slswgGlHy07fw475n. If you E-mail, it will be slower than Live Chat: <[email protected]> 2. *** If spam mail was sent to any of your contacts, apologize, and notify all your contacts NOT to open short e-mails, especially those with no subject, and definitely not to click any links. Warn them to scan for malware too, just in case. Set up an alternate 'alias' account to use instead. This allows you to use a different address for sending, but still keep all saved mails and contacts and the first address active too for incoming mail. Your friends can trust this new address. (There is a choice of address in an arrow in the From: box.) http://edit.yahoo..com/config/list_alias (alternate address) (Ribbit)