‘Urgent Server Warning’ Email Phishing Scam

According to this email, which claims to be a high-level security warning, your email account is about to be terminated.

The email claims that the service provider received an instruction to terminate your account a few hours ago. It urges you to click a link to stop the account termination if you think the request was an error. But, warns the email, you need to take action immediately because the account will shortly be closed.

However, the email is not from any legitimate email security team and the claim that your account will be closed if you do not click the link is untrue. In fact, the message is a phishing scam designed to steal your email account password.

The initial scam email looks like this:

If you click the link to stop the supposed account termination, you will be taken to a web page that looks like this:

To further urge you to take action immediately, the page includes an – entirely fake – account termination countdown.

If you click the “Stop this action” button, the following pop-up window will appear:

If you enter your email account password as requested, you will receive a final fake message stating that you have successfully stopped your account from being closed.

But, now, online criminals can use your email address and password to take control of your email account. Once they have gained access, they can then use the account to launch spam, scam, and malware campaigns in your name.

And, if your email account is linked to other services such as app stores and online storage, the criminals will be able to access these as well. They may be able to make purchases in the app store using your account. And, they may be able to search through your stored documents and gather more of your personal and financial information. If they gather enough information, they may attempt to steal your identity.

Scam emails like this one are very common. It is always safest to login to your email and other online accounts via a trusted app or by entering the address into your browser’s address bar.