Account Alert | Sunday Beauty XXXVII

This was in my Hotmail Inbox this morning. I haven’t seen this specimen since September. (They’ve updated and improved it. Can you spot the difference? ¹ )

From: Windows Live™ Hotmail (accountcongestion42@hotmail.com)
Subject: Hotmail Account Alert‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏

Dear Account Owner,

This Email is from Hotmail Customer Care and we are sending it to every Hotmail Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Hotmail accounts so we are shutting down some Hotmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 48 hours for security reasons.

* User Name: ………………………..
* Password: …………………………..
* Date of Birth: …………………………
* Alternative email: …………….
* Alternative password: …………….

After following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconveniences.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Hotmail Team

It has been a long time since I have received one of these incredibly lame phishing attempts. I had thought the *people* behind them had finally figured out that the days when people might fall for this were over. This form is so.. 90′s!
Send me your password.
Right.

Seeing this made me good ‘n mad. This email was in my Hotmail Inbox, not my Junk folder. It contained an animated GIF. Shouldn’t Hotmail’s “Smart filter” spam catcher have caught, and flagged, this??? Yes! This is mid-year 2011.
Shouldn’t the Evil Doers have abandoned this strategy as obsolete, knowing people are far too experienced and savvy to ever fall for it these days??? Yes. This is 2011, and phishing emails like this have been around since Windows 95 and 56K modems.
Savvy and experienced users…
Right.

I have to shake my head. And shrug. And sigh. And try to cheer myself up. I have to just “accept” that the percentage of the population who know about phishing, and “Sender spoofing” has not increased in the last year. Despite all education efforts.

Don’t be a chump: accountcongestion42@hotmail.com is a criminal.

At least the sun is out…
Maybe this pretty picture will help.

Click on image to see more by this artist

Photo by mattii70, courtesy of Flickr Commons

¹ the difference is: now they are asking for a second email+password too, and they dropped the “Country of origin”.

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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