Spammers Spin Hotmail Account Holders in E-mail Scam

The fake e-mail scam, which targeted Facebook users in the past, has now been targeting Hotmail users in the third week of March 2009. The scam appears as a money scam, but could lead to identity theft.

The phony e-mail asks recipient to confirm his windows live account services as well as to verify his Hotmail account. It asks for password, username, date of birth and country. It also contains a link that directs the user to a phishing site. The e-mail also warns users to deny the updation of his account that may lead to the permanent closure of his account.

The scam e-mail states that in order to reduce the congestion of accounts and to remove all idle accounts, Hotmail would shut down all unused accounts. Thus, it directs users to verify the e-mail by giving all login details after clicking on the reply button or else their accounts would be suspended within 24 hours on security grounds.

One of the victims of this recent e-mail scam noted that the spoof link provided at the bottom of the e-mail, directing back to the customer service of Hotmail appeared legitimate. So, she furnished all the information asked therein and after two days, her account was found hacked.

Moreover, a confirmation e-mail was sent to the victim. The aforementioned victim received a call from some person on the contact list of her e-mail. They had received an e-mail that purported to be sent by her and was stating that she was in the UK and wanted money to return home.

According to experts, such scams are becoming common. The fake e-mail is having grammatical errors and thus, can be distinguished from the legit ones. Moreover, neither banks nor e-mail senders will communicate in such a way asking for personal information. So, users should be vigilant about such scams.

For long, spammers have been abusing the name of Hotmail to trick Hotmail users into disclosing all their personal details. Previously, spammers dodged the Hotmail account holders by sending an e-mail stating that Hotmail staff wanted to make the users aware of the "New Hotmail Terms of Use" and these were provided by means of a fake link.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 3/25/2009