We’ve likely all received a “bank details invalid”, or “mysterious payment rejected” message at one point or another.ĭepending on personal circumstance and/or what’s happening in the world at any given moment, one person’s “big deal” is another one’s “oh no, my stuff”. Trying to panic people into hitting a button or click a link is an ancient social engineering tactic, but it sticks around because it works. However, this is great news for everybody else. This probably isn't something the mail creators need, quite frankly. While the mail explicitly targets Microsoft account holders, Outlook is flagging this missive and dropping it directly into the spam box. This is the kind of thing anyone anywhere can piece together in ten minutes flat, and mails of this nature have been bouncing aroundfor years.īut, given current world events, seeing “unusual sign-in activity from Russia” is going to make most people do a double take, and it’s perfect spam bait material for that very reason. We have to be very clear here that anybody could have put this mail together, and may well not have anything to do with Russia directly. Is this mail deliberately or accidentally referencing world events? The best thing to do is not reply, and delete the email. Either way, people are at risk from losing control of their account to the phishers. It’s also entirely possible the scammers will keep everything exclusively to communication via email. People sending a reply will almost certainly receive a request for login details, and possibly payment information, most likely via a bogus phishing page. They also managed to spell account wrong - “acount”. In this case, the email's subject line is “Report the user”, while the phisher’s mail address claims to be some form of Microsoft account protection. Instead, it’s a Mailto: URI which opens a fresh email with a pre-filled message to be sent to a specific email account. Should the recipient click the button, they’re not forwarded to a report page.
The mail provides a button to “report the user”, and an unsubscribe option. If this was you, we'll trust similar activity in the future. We detected something unusual about a recent sign-in to the Microsoft accountĪ user from Russia/Moscow just logged into your account from a new device, If this wasn't you, please report the user. The email's subject line, “Microsoft account unusual sign-in activity”, is always guaranteed to attract some attention. Being on your guard will pay dividends over the coming days and weeks, as more of the below is sure to follow. We’ve received an interesting spam email which (deliberately or not) could get people thinking about the current international crisis.
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