Hotmail Account Holders Vulnerable to Latest E-mail Scam

An e-mail, purporting from the team of Hotmail Customer Care, is in fact a phishing scam, as reported by Webuser on November 18, 2008.

According to the security experts, fraudsters are circulating these spoofed e-mails among numerous Hotmail account holders. Therein, the recipients are warned of a security problem in the network, stating that some Hotmail account users have caused the network jam.

Further, the e-mail states that as a step to sort out the problem, Hotmail is deactivating all the doubtful accounts and thus, the e-mail is sent to users in order to verify their Hotmail account details. The recipients are also warned that if they fail to respond to the e-mail, then their account will be locked within a day. By means of the e-mail, the users are asked to disclose their password, username and date of birth.

The English language used in the e-mail is somewhat erroneous, as per the security experts. The normal spelling and grammatical mistakes committed in the e-mail may enable the recipients to detect the fake message.

The bogus e-mail also states that some unidentified registrations of Hotmail accounts have led to the blocking of network, thus their Hotmail accounts are being closed and the recipient's account is one of them. Consequently, this e-mail has been sent so that the users can verify their account status and tell whether they are willing to use this account or not, as reported by Webuser, on November 18, 2008.

Moreover, the security experts asked the users to take every mail asking to reveal any sort of personal detail as a scam message. They are also advised not to click the link embedded in the e-mail.

This e-mail scam is not new as Hotmail users have encountered such an assault, purporting to come from Hotmail Customer Care, earlier in August 2008. In that scam, the users were asked for their username, password, date of birth and country.

According to Christopher Boyd, Director of malware Research, FaceTime Security, the scam, though not new, requires special mention due to its latest nuisance activities, as Webuser reported on November 18, 2008.

Related article: Hotmail Snag Causes Infection on Innumerable Computers

» SPAMfighter News - 12/2/2008