Yahoo Chat could have a security problem

READERS REPORT that incidents over the holiday period suggest there may be a security bug on Yahoo Chat, if people opt for the insecure link, rather than the safe one.

But Yahoo -- which is running a skeletal service over the holiday period -- said it would never comment on such problems.

One reader told us that while a grown up member of his family was using Yahoo Chat, she got a message from another user, telling her that he had her password details and should communicate with him to get her new password.

She was using insecure "Chat".

And her password had been changed, with Yahoo duly sending her notice that the password had been changed.

The problem is not just restricted to this one user - four of her friends found their passwords had been changed without them knowing, too.

The reader said that he'd been in touch with Yahoo about the problem, but so far, the company hasn't replied.

The problem appears to be with Yahoo 5. We're contacting the company ourselves to see if we can discover whether there is a problem.

The INQUIRER phoned Yahoo's press office yesterday and it declined to comment either way on whether there was a problem.

A representative said that Yahoo never commented on these kind of problems. We understand that "secure connections" should be used, other than the average kind of connection. So be warned. µ