Yahoo Account Warning - Phishing for Your E-mail Account

Phising pronounced like fishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. [1]

My mother in-law recently forwarded me the message below:

Deactivation of your Yahoo Account kindly note that we recently did some
upgrade on our database.
During the upgrade there was an unusual responds code from your email
address requesting for deactivation.

Verify to deactivate or keep your email account active, in order to
verify/confirm you email identity,
you are to provide the following data:

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW
First Name:____________________________
Last Name:_____________________________
Email Username:________________________
Email Password:_______________________
Account Deactivation:__________________(specify Yes to deactivate or No to
keep active)
Reason for Deactivation_____________(if yes)

Warning!!!

In failure to verify your email account within 48hrs on receiving this
notification, your account will automatically be
deactivated.

Thank you for using our YAHOO
Warning Code: ASPH8B02AXV

Kind regards,
The Yahoo Service Team Management.

End of Message

This didn't come from Yahoo at all. It likely came from another account that the people stole from someone else. They are looking for accounts like yours to send spam from or other user name and password information that you might have in your e-mail. People register for many things online and all of them require your e-mail address. Right after you register that website likely sends you an e-mail with your account details. Some of these sites store your credit card information to make it easier for you to purchase in the future. They won't display the whole credit card number on the website but they will publish the last four digits. People can use this type of information for all kinds of various purposes.

No reputable online company will ever ask you for your password by e-mail or over the phone. They may request that you reset your password on a regular basis this just improves security in case you told your password to someone or it got out somewhere. If you're forced or requested to reset it this may happen. If you're unsure at all about an e-mail do a Google search on the subject line and see what comes up. If the first page if full of people screaming it's a scam don't do it then it likely is.

AC has a few other articles on phising that you should check out on this topic http://www.associatedcontent.com/subject/article/phising

Sources:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing