Phishers hijack IM accounts

In a twist on phishing, cybercrooks are hijacking instant-messaging accounts to lure people to their information-thieving Web sites, ZDNet reports.
On Friday, for example, a Yahoo employee found that scammers had used her account. They sent her Yahoo Messenger contacts a link to a phishing site. The miscreants had gotten hold of her login credentials, probably through another scam that she had fallen for, the company said.
The link led to a site hosted on Geocities, Yahoo’s free Web space service. The fraudulent site looked just like a Yahoo Photos Web site and asked visitors for their Yahoo login information. Yahoo took the scam site down on Friday morning.
Phishing is one of the most common online threats. In August, 26,150 phishing Web sites were reported to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a cross-industry group established to fight phishing.