[Infowarrior] - Gmail chat invaded by phishing scam

[Richard Forno]

  Gmail chat invaded by phishing scam
Chat “buddies” send links to URLs that infect other machines
By Brad Reed , Network World , 02/24/2009

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/022409-gmail-chat-is-invaded-by-phishing-scam.html

Google’s e-mail service has been invaded by a phishing scam that is  
using instant messaging to dupe unsuspecting users into giving up  
their passwords.

Once users’ Gmail chats are hacked, the phishers take over users’ chat  
accounts and send out messages to other users purportedly linking to a  
“funny video.”  When users click on the link, they are directed to a  
Website called “ViddyHo,” where they are prompted to enter in their  
Gmail names and passwords.  The Website then steals users’ account  
information and uses their chat accounts to send out more messages.
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Blogger Nathan Burke looked up domain name information for viddyho.com  
and discovered that the Website has only been in existence for the  
past week.  He also notes that viddyho.com is targeting several  
different chat protocols besides Gmail, including AOL Instant  
Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger and MySpace.

The Gmail phishing scam first broke out just hours after Google’s  
Gmail experienced a significant service outage this morning.  It is  
unknown at this point whether the outage is connected to the phishing  
scam.