January 14th, 2009:

Changing your Yahoo! Mail password, if not inevitable, is necessary. Regularly changing your password not only keeps your password from being guessed by your friends, but it also protects your account from being accessed by phishers or scammers. Here is a step-by-step instruction on how you can change your current Yahoo! Mail password.

Log in to your Yahoo! account

The first step in changing your Yahoo! password is, of course, to log-in to your Yahoo! Mail account. After all, logging in to your Yahoo! account is the only way you can modify your account settings.

Select the Account Info option

Point your cursor to the “Hi, [username]” link on the upper right corner of your Yahoo! Mail homepage and wait for a drop-down menu to appear. Choose the Account Info option to open your Yahoo! Mail account information page. If you are using the All-New Yahoo! Mail instead of the Classic Yahoo! Mail, you will find the “Hi, [username]” link not on the upper right corner of the homepage but on the upper left side. The position of the “Hi, [username]” link, however, is not the only difference between the layout of the All-New and the Classic Yahoo! Mail. The Account Info option has been renamed Edit My Account in the newer version.

Click on the Change Password link

You can find the Change Password link on the upper part of your Yahoo! Mail account information page. It is situated just below your Yahoo! Mail address. Clicking this usually blue-highlighted link opens the Change Your Yahoo! Password page.

Enter a new Yahoo! Mail password

There are three blank fields on the Change Your Yahoo! Password page: a field for your current password, your new password, and a confirmation of your new password. Enter the correct letters or numbers into their corresponding fields and click the SAVE button to successfully change your Yahoo! Mail password.

Red Cross is all about protecting human welfare and alleviating human suffering. The email scams involving it, however, do exactly the opposite. Sadly, the non-profit organization famous for holding blood drives and conducting medical seminars has constantly been used by email scanners to acquire personal information or steal donation money from oblivious email recipients.

Seeking donations

Presenting the idea of philanthropy is one of the easiest ways to lure people into giving out money. After all, who doesn’t want to do a good deed once in a while? This is exactly the hidden agenda behind the fake email, which was allegedly sent by Red Cross and the Romanian government, urging people to make donations for the less fortunate people of Tecuci. All kindhearted recipients of the email who wish to share their blessings with their fellowmen may send their donations by making a wire transfer to either the Red Cross bank account in Romania or the Red Cross PayPal account at redcross@representative.com.

Offering jobs

Email scams are not all about seeking donations. In fact, another fraudulent email using the Red Cross brand is claiming to give the recipients an opportunity to earn more money. Yes, earn more money by becoming an employee for the European chapter of Red Cross. All interested applicants over the age of 21 may forward their resumes and other supporting documents to the alleged Human Resource Department of the Red Cross, which is located in an address where not a single Red Cross office has been previously built.

Yet another email scam is on the rounds to deceive oblivious Internet users. Only this time, the email wasn’t “sent” by a lottery commission or a financial institution. The fraudulent email that is currently invading the inboxes of frequent fliers is allegedly from the travel office of Northwest, a major airline in the United States.

Thanking the customer for the purchase

Many Northwest Airlines customers have already alerted the authorities about the fake email. The investigators discovered that the fake email had been actually sent to all Northwest Airlines customers who were using the airline’s online booking system at its official website. In fact, the message in the fake email even starts with a “thank you” to the email recipient for participating in the airline’s “Buy Northwest Airlines Ticket Online” promotion. To make it seem even more believable, the fake email was even signed by an alleged Northwest Airlines employee.

Downloading the virus into the computer

Unlike most email scams, the Northwest Airlines email scam is not meant to phish out credit details and personal information from unknowing email recipients. The main objective of the original senders of the fraudulent email is simple: to get other people to activate the attached Trojan. The Trojan attachment, which is disguised as a .zip file containing the invoice for the ticket and credit card charge, is very harmful not only to the email account but also to the computer system. In fact, it traces the keystrokes inputted into the infected personal computer and sends all useful information to a particular server whose origin was traced back to Russia.