Yodel Anecdotal » security

A Yahoo! Sign-In Seal & Why You Need One

Yahoo — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:34:22 +0000

As Yahoo!’s head of Customer Advocacy, I would like to share another great online safety tool we’ve created to help protect your vital and private information while using the web.

Have you ever wondered how online hackers gain access to your personal information? What if I told you that in many cases it was YOU who provided them with the information they need to gain access to the data you value most? It’s true, but a free tool called the “sign-in seal” is one way to avoid becoming victim to piracy.

What’s a sign-in seal and why do you need one? Great questions!

A sign-in seal is a secret message or image that you select to help protect your account from fraud such as password phishing. When you create a sign-in seal for your computer, you can be sure you’re on a legitimate Yahoo! site each time you use your computer to log in to your Yahoo! account. You’ll see the text or image you set up on your computer. If it’s not there, you might have landed on a “spoofed” site.

The sign-in seal you designated is only saved on the computer you created it on – therefore if you log in using a different computer, you will not see the sign-in seal. If you use more than one computer or browser, you can choose to create a sign-in seal for each. If you don’t see your sign-in seal on the sign-in page, the webpage you’ve opened is likely a fake Yahoo! page. If this happens, you should report the incident to Yahoo! customer care immediately!

Another important tip: do NOT create a sign-in seal on a computer you share with strangers such as those in libraries, Internet cafes, and other public hot spots.

For more information on online safety, please visit: http://security.yahoo.com
Have a wonderful day!

Jeff Russakow
EVP of Customer Advocacy
Yahoo! Inc.

Product Pulse — May 9, 2008

Nicki Dugan — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:17:51 +0000

You silently grieve every time you open your drawer — all those lonely socks whose mates went missing on their last trip to the laundry room. Well, today is Lost Sock Memorial Day. A time to mourn, eulogize… and then face the music and admit those tootsie warmers ain’t never coming back. After you’re done purging, here’s what we got out of our system this week:

Safe from harm: Like the real world, the Web can have some crummy neighborhoods. That’s why we launched SearchScan, a new safety feature built into Yahoo! Search, courtesy of the security experts at McAfee. No more unwittingly clicking on dangerous links that might download spyware, malware, or other nefarious wares. You’ll get a warning label next to questionable web sites, including those that might have dubious email practices that include spammy missives in your inbox. We just don’t want you going to the wrong side of the street. More here.
Your every move: Those cats at MyBlogLog are making it easier to keep tabs on what your community of contacts is up to. They’ve just added Yahoo! Answers, Google Reader, and the cool new video startup Seesmic to the nearly 50 popular services you can track in your “New With Me” lifestream. Make a move? MyBlogLog will post that event for all to see. More here. They also just cooked up an Add Services Shortcut (with a most unfortunate acronym) that assumes that you use the same screenname at multiple sites. Their script monkeys scan the services for your ID and let you add them with a single click.
Seeing is believing: You’re a visual person. You like pretty pictures. Then Glue Pages Beta is for you. Over across the Big Pond, the Yahoo! India Search team just launched a new concept for search that sticks text, images, and video content together into a single results page. Available for select terms across categories like health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance, it gives you various takes on a given topic. For example, “Barak Obama” brings back results on Wikipedia, Yahoo! News, Memeorandum.com, videos, images, blogs, and RSS feeds for the most active political news sources. More here.
Searchin’ Safari: This isn’t so much product news, as just good news… for Mac users. We just acquired Inquisitor, which created a Safari browser plug-in that auto-completes search queries and pops up results along with ideas to help refine. It’s not unlike our own Search Assist feature. Download it here and keep your eyes peeled for future innovations.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

Do you know where your mouse has been?

Vish Makhijani — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:15:15 +0000

Did you know that every year Internet scams and traps cost Americans over 7 billion dollars? Searching on the Web can present a minefield of spyware, malware and other malicious sites that can cause serious harm to your PC and cost you valuable time and money.

We are taking steps to make you feel safe when searching the Web — warning you about dangerous sites before you click on them. Today we’ve launched SearchScan (in beta), a new safety feature tucked into Yahoo! Search, courtesy of our friends, the dedicated security experts over at McAfee.

It provides alerts that appear within your search results, flagging “risky” sites with dangerous downloads that can include spyware and viruses. SearchScan will even warn you about sites that have dubious email practices to help you keep your email box free of spam.

No other search engine today offers you this level of warning before visiting sites. Period.

Yahoo! Search with the SearchScan feature is like your Internet security guard, warning you of danger so you can search with confidence… another reason to make Yahoo.com your starting point

Vish Makhijani
SVP & GM, Yahoo! Search