Just as Gmail was recovering from it’s hours-long outage yesterday, it was hit with yet another problem, this time a phishing scam that uses Google Talk instant messages to dupe users into revealing their passwords.
The scam takes over users’ Gmail accounts and sends IMs to other users containing a link to site called ViddyHo that supposedly hosts a “funny video.” When users go to the link, they are prompted to log into their Google Talk account before they can view it. Mashable reports the screen prompt looks like this:
The scam then feeds on itself, sending out more IMs as more accounts are compromised. As of this writing, however, the offending site hosting the video link has been disabled. Still, if you found yourself a victim of Viddyho, now’s would be a good time to change your password — and refresh yourself on Google’s security advice, including the No. 1 rule–don’t tell anyone your password, even if it’s your parrot. And especially not a site called ViddyHo.
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