According to this email, which was supposedly sent by the “Email Security Team” at Yahoo.com, your account has been infected with a virus.
It claims that you must click a link to run a quick scan and keep your account safe. It warns that if you ignore the message, “your account will be suspended without further notice to protect our server from further damage”.
If you click the link. you will be taken to a fraudulent website that features a bogus login form. The form asks for your email address and email account password. If you enter the requested login details, you’ll then receive a message claiming that the alleged viruses have been removed and your account made safe.
You may then go about your business blissfully unaware that online crooks now have your email login details and can use them to hijack your account.
Once they have gained access, the criminals can use your account to distribute scam, spam, and malware emails that look like they came from you.
These days, email account login details often provide access to linked services such as online file storage and app stores. If so, the criminals will also be able to take control of these linked services.
Email account phishing scam messages like this are common and take many forms.
A screenshot of the scam email:
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
