#Yahoo mail password hacking online software#

'It's much more likely that I'd click on something from you if we email all the time,' says Richard Mogull, analyst and CEO of Securois, a security research and advisory firm. By grabbing real names from those sent folders, hackers could try to make bogus messages appear more legitimate to recipients. That could mean hackers were looking for additional email addresses to send spam or scam messages. said in a blog post on its breach that 'The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts' most recent sent emails.' 'We're clearly under attack.' Using names to appear legitimate 'It's an old trend, but it's much more exaggerated now because the programs the bad guys use are much more sophisticated now,' says Avivah Litan, a security analyst at the technology research firm Gartner. Up to 70 million customers of Target stores had their personal information and credit and debit card numbers compromised late last year, and Neiman Marcus was the victim of a similar breach in December.

#Yahoo mail password hacking online software#

It's the latest in a string of security breaches that have allowed hackers to nab personal information using software that analysts say is ever more sophisticated.

There are 273 million Yahoo mail accounts worldwide, including 81 million in the United States. Yahoo is the second-largest email service worldwide, after Google's Gmail, according to the research firm comScore. Yahoo didn't say how many accounts have been affected. Usernames and passwords of some of Yahoo's email customers have been stolen and used to gather personal information about people those Yahoo mail users have recently corresponded with, the company said Thursday.