How can you restore my yahoo before problems appear?

Bob I have done the virus scan and system restore but still having problems. I want to use yahoo.?

• I am not very technology minded but my brother is and he has spent over 2 hours scanning for virus's and has done a system restore several times to no avail. The email I received from yahoo after a week (tried everyday to get into my account through yahoo on 11 Feb) I tried one more time and yahoo let me into my account and that is when I read the email. It said that I had until the 17th Feb. midnight to reset my password. I followed the instructions as did my b rother and it would not let me change my password. I can get into my yahoo account for now but what happens after the 17th if I have not reset my password.

• Answer:

  You fell for a 'phishing scam' asking you to change your password. It was a fake mail not from Yahoo at all. (Yahoo never asks this!) If you change your password that way, a hacker can read your mail for personal identity theft and financial fraud - and spam all your saved addresses in mails and your contacts list with the same scam too! NEVER click a link to change any details in any site - only use the safe site from the Yahoo web site. Nothing will happen to your account if you do not change your password this way, but change all your security details now for safety. 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 much longer than 8 characters, with mixed symbols. Usually, this is all you need to do. 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/. Give them your identity using your country, and the same alternate email address or mobile phone number and Security Questions and Answers that you provided during registration or the last time you edited. Knowing the approximate date when you set up the account also helps. You might also be asked for your birthday, ZIP or postal code at the time you last updated. Check your alternate e-mail and Spam folder for a response too. 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. Just to be very sure your computer is not infected, run both an anti-virus and spyware/malware scans, updated and separately - even more than one malware scan, or Trend Micro's Housecall for an online a-v scan. (*** in 'Safe Mode with Networking' is the only truly effective method - click F8 repeatedly when the screen first lights on boot-up, then arrow keys and Enter to navigate. ***) Re-boot into Safe Mode for each separate scan. These are the best free anti-malware programs. http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free http://www.superantispyware.com/ (Ribbit)