PayPal Unusual Activity warns phishing email

PayPal Unusual Activity warns phishing email

There is one certainty when checking our email filters in the morning. There will be at least one PayPal phishing email. Today’s phishing email steers a course of style over substance. It looks good. It looks convincing. It may trap people if they don’t read the email. But like flawed characters, closer reading shows that it is a fake email. It uses a sense of urgency to pressure the recipient. It headlines the possibility of a security breach of the recipient’s PayPal account. Unusual activity has been detected, the email warns. But for all that, the email is a fake.

Figure A shows the email. It uses a PayPal logo. There is a yellow box that spells out the issue and the action required. The email is from “PayPal.inc”. The actual email domain is not a PayPal domain. The subject line of the email is “Your account has been limited!” A reference number is used to add authenticity to the email. A PayPal email identifier is also used. The email implores the user to login to their account as soon as possible via a link.

The link is a button with text ”Login.” PayPal is also meant to be part of the text; however the last three characters are not English text. The mixing in of non-English characters occurs through the email. The frequency of occurrence is sufficient to raise suspicions in most users. The email advises that information is required for account confirmation. The email also advises that PayPal may take up to 72 hours to respond.

This email is a fake. There are grammatical errors. There is no personalised greeting. PayPal emails use your first name and last name in emails. The link does not lead to the genuine PayPal site. It leads to a phishing site. The phishing site is realistic, but fake. This email is a fake and can be deleted.

Scott Reeves
MailShark
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