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Friday 14 June 2013

Yahoo! "We want you back" email mystery

Here's a minor mystery with something that looks very much like a phishing email..

From:     Yahoo! [noreply@email.yahoo-inc.com]
Date:     14 June 2013 08:42
Subject:     We want you back
Signed by:     email.yahoo-inc.com

Yahoo!    
We want you back.
Sign in now    
     

Keep your account active by signing in before July 15th, 2013.

By reactivating your Yahoo! account you can experience the new Yahoo! Mail, more personalized content on Yahoo.com, and so much more.

Once your account is reactivated, every time you sign in, your account will be extended by 12 months.

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It just looks so much like a phishing email that a sensible person probably wouldn't click on it.. except, the links in the email actually go to Yahoo! and the email has been signed, so this really does appear to be a genuine email.

Except for one thing.. the email address that it was sent to has never been used to register a Yahoo! account. Yup.. something somewhere is not right with this email..

Yahoo!'s explanation can be found here.

2 comments:

martijn said...

That's interesting. The email is probably genuine, Yahoo is re-issuing long unused email addresses, which is a bad idea for different reasons.

But the fact that the email address has never been used to register a Yahoo account made me wonder if this is related to the mass takeover of Yahoo accounts (some of which are tightly secured, others had been long unused).

Although if this were used to take over accounts, I don't know why someone would add an address of yours.

Unknown said...

I got one of these too. It was sent to an address that hadn't been linked to my Yahoo account. I eventually called Yahoo service and the rep insisted no such email being sent out. And yet it sure looks genuine and what's the point anyway.