The latest phishing scam to hit online users to date managed to publicly post the usernames and passwords of a myriad of accounts from popular services like Gmail and Hotmail. Furthermore, Yahoo and AOL are potential targets of this trend as well. The recent development is obviously a cause of major concern for most everyone who had ever sported an account with any of the abovementioned email providers.

Just this week, Google and Microsoft had recently released statements purporting that the compromised information was most probably obtained via a widespread and frighteningly convincing phishing scam wherein a multitude of unsuspecting individuals are sent email warnings for a fake security breach that ask them to click on a hyperlink that leads them to a site where they could enter their sensitive account information.

When phishing first entered the Internet scene, the fake phishing sites that trick you into giving away your information (usually login screens or registration forms) were crudely made imitations that relied more on user carelessness than accuracy of rendition to get their hits. Nowadays, that's not the case. These scam sites now look exactly like the legitimate sites they're imitating (for example, payment services like eBay's PayPal or official bank sites that provide online payment options).

Once you log your personal information in one of these malicious sites—whether it's account information or credit card numbers—that data is seized by the scammers, who can then use it to impersonate and defraud you. What's more, by gaining access to your email, these criminals can also use it to retrieve "lost" passwords from your other accounts, which may even include financial accounts as well.

There are a variety of measures you can take in order to avoid becoming a victim of this type of cyber crime. For instance, you should change your passwords on a regular basis. By using different passwords every three months, you'll be able to prevent scammers from accessing your account.

You should also avoid using the same password for different accounts in order to preemptively stop the domino effect of letting hackers gain access to any one of them. Moreover, you should be more careful of what you click. Whenever you get email from what looks like a legitimate site asking you to click on a link to visit for any reason, you must exercise caution before clicking.