Sunday 15 May 2011

Beware E-mail Fishing Trips!

Attempts to entrap people into giving away their internet security details continue unabated. 

One Natlander reports receiving the seemingly innocent e-mail shown below.  However had she hit the return button the email would not have gone to BT but to a totally different address at y7mail.com, wherever that is.  It was a fishing trip.

Rather than worry about trying to determine where such a message has really come from, the general rule is not to provide password or other sensitive information unless you have initiated the enquiry on a known website and certainly never provide it in an open e-mail to an unsolicited message, no matter how plausible.

Here is the suspect e-mail:

From: BT Yahoo! Mail Team <account_update@btinternet.com>
Sent: Saturday, 14 May, 2011 8:17:34
Subject: BT Yahoo! Mail Account Update


ATTN: BT Yahoo! Mail USERs,
We are contacting you to remind you that our Account Review Team identified
some unusual activity in your BT Yahoo! Mail Account. As a result,access to
your account has been limited in accordance with the BT Yahoo! Mail Online User
Agreement. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been
resolved. You are therefore required to provide the information below;

° BT Yahoo! Mail E-mail (**********) and Password (********)

*Important*
Please provide all these information completely and correctly otherwise due to
security reasons we may have to close your BT Yahoo! Mail account temporarily.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that
this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your BT Yahoo! Mail
Account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thanks
The BT Yahoo! Mail Technical Team
©2011 BT Yahoo! Mail Internet. All Rights Reserved.