Yamanner

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Yamanner was a JavaScript computer worm that exploited a flaw in Yahoo! Mail. It appeared on June 12, 2006 and spread when users opened a malicious email that ran scripts in the browser. The worm then sent the victim’s address book to a remote server and tried to forward itself to the victim’s Yahoo! contacts—the worm targeted addresses ending in yahoo.com or yahoogroups.com.

The infected messages often had the subject “New Graphic Site” and were spoofed to look like they came from “av3 at the rate yahoo.com.” Opening the email redirected users to www.av3.net/index.htm. At the time there was no patch for the vulnerability, so people were advised to update antivirus and firewall definitions and block emails from av3 at the rate yahoo.com. Overall, Yamanner caused little damage but showed how easily email services could be abused.