User name and passwords of AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, and YahooMail were illegally leaked online but sites that contained the lists have already taken them offline. Users are advised to change their webmail passwords immediately.

According to security experts, the usernames and passwords were gathered using a phishing scheme. Phishing schemes fools users into entering their username and password by creating a bogus website that appears the same as the legitimate ones. The only difference is that the username and password goes to criminals instead of the legitimate website. For example, you receive a link in your email or search engine and click on it, you think you are on the Yahoo Mail website log-in page because it looks like the Yahoo Mail website log-in page. In reality, it is a bogus website that just looks like the real Yahoo Mail website log-in page. Another trick is when your computer has no anti-virus software installed or your computer has an anti-virus software installed but it is not updated. You open an attachment to your email and nothing happens. What you don’t know is that by clicking on that attachment, you have just installed a keylogger program.

Keylogger programs records every letter, number, and character that you type and this program sends the recorded keystrokes to criminals. Always install an anti-virus program on computers that you use. Always make sure that you update it, otherwise it will not be able to detect newer viruses.

The Internet is free and so are the trash (E.g.:viruses) that is scattered all over it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/06/gmail_webmail_phish/