ORLANDO —
This phishing scam is designed to steal Gmail, Yahoo, Windows Live and AOL passwords.
The email is titled “Microsoft Windows Update,” and it urges recipients to verify their email accounts by entering personal login information.
“It has come to our attention that your Microsoft windows Installation records are out of date. Every Windows installation has to be tied to an email account for daily update.
This requires you to verify the Email Account. Failure to verify your records will result in account suspension. Click in the Verify button below and enter your login information on the following page to Confirm your records.”
Clicking on the verify link leads you to a third party website — supposedly microsoft.com, but actually isn’t the real deal.
Tony Tate, a local IT expert says the first red flag — there are various random words in that email that are capitalized.
Second– this is not a common practice for a big company like Microsoft to do.
“When in doubt leave it out, Tate said. “Don’t bother with it if you don’t understand it or know where it’s coming from.”
Tony gave us some other tips to pass along as well:
- Make sure you check the spelling in the email and the header. If there are any misspellings or poor grammar that’s also a red flag.
- Hover over the link without clicking on it. If you see .vbs in the link — that’s another red flag.
- Then if you do, by accident click on the link — clear your browser history immediately and change your passwords.
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