Fake Yahoo! Login Forms

ID Stealing

For too long, people have been creating clones of Yahoo! Login pages, and changing the page to send YOUR password and username, unencrypted to their e-mail addresses.  Once they get your username and password, they change your password, and lock you out of your own account.  Unfortunately, this appears to be on the increase.

What the pages look like

The pages are an exact copy of Yahoo's Log in pages.  From looking at the page, no difference, all the links link to valid Yahoo! Pages.  It uses the official Yahoo! Logo (Which is a registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.)

If in doubt, go to http://edit.yahoo.com/ and log in there, this sets your cookie for all Yahoo! Services.  You should not be requested for your ID again.

How to tell a bad page

There are a number of ways to tell, first, look in the address bar of your browser.

Browser Address Bar

If it is something like the above, and starts with edit.yahoo.com or login.yahoo.com then it's safe.

If it's something like the above, its BAD.  Only the main page geocities.yahoo.com is a valid login page for Geocities.

Right Click Properties
As an extra check, right click on the page, select properies.
Look for address(URL): xxxxxxxxxxxx.  Where xxxxxxxxxxx is the URL.  Again, it should be one of the good ones from above.
If you right click, and (1) Nothing happens, OR (2) You get a no right click message, this is a sign it's BAD.

Form Submission
Edit>>View source.

Now look for the <form tag, and look for the action= attribute.  That should be something like login.yahoo.com/more-stuff-here .  If it's something like bravenet.com/pub14/ it's an ID stealer.

What to do if you find a bad page

Report it to (1) Yahoo! and (2) The website host.  If you don't report it, remember someone else may be fooled by the page in question!

Yahoo!: http://help.yahoo.com or chat-help@yahoo.com or cc-advoc@yahoo.com

If it's a Yahoo! Geocities Page: http://geocities.yahoo.com/v/alert.html to report it.