Yahoo Mail SCAM - if you get this email, do NOT click on it

NEW SCAM email campaign attempts to trick Yahoo Mail users into giving away their passwords - here’s what to do if you’ve been affected.

Yahoo Mail users are being urged to check their messages carefully after a new scam targeting the service was discovered.

Criminals are targeting users of the popular email platform with professional-looking messages claiming to be from Yahoo.

Express.co.uk was targeted by one of the scam emails, despite not having a Yahoo account - so here’s what you need to look out for.

Yahoo Mail users are being targeted by this new email scam

The email, which included an official Yahoo logo but did not mention a source address, included a correct first name, which may have been enough to convince many potential victims.

However it then went on to mention a fake Yahoo account that had apparently been accessed from, “an unrecognised device in Saudi Arabia”.

The message goes on to advise the victim that if they had not recently tried to log in to their account from this country to click on a link that will allow them to update their account recover information.

However the link within the message simply redirects the victim to a third-party site where their passwords are stolen and sold on.

The message uses official Yahoo imagery, but makes several major errors

The theme of the scam may be timed to coincide with headlines concerning the recent major hack on Yahoo’s services. 

Two Russian spies were today charged as suspects in at least one of a series of hacking attacks on the former internet giant.

A 2013 attack revealed in December affected more than a billion user accounts.

In a separate 2014 attack, disclosed in September, information was stolen from at least 500 million user accounts.

Yahoo Mail has been hit by several major breaches over the past two years, resulting in millions of user accounts being accessed by outside sources.

Around 32 million Yahoo Mail accounts were affected in the most recent attack, with hackers using forged cookies to access Yahoo user accounts without needing a password.

Yahoo has also infamously been hit by other major recent cyber-assaults which saw over a billion Yahoo user accounts compromised.

If you think you’ve been the victim of a cyberattack, check out Express.co.uk’s guide on the next steps to take here.