Be wary of emails claiming you’ve gone over your email storage limit – users of both AOL and Outlook are reporting the following poorly written message crashing their mailbox party in the last couple of days:
“Kindly Re-Validate Your MailboxYour mailbox has exceeded the storage limit is 1 GB, which is defined by the administrator, are running at 99.8 gigabytes, you can not send or receive new messages until you re-validate your mailbox. To renew the mailbox, click link below: [removed]
Thank you! Web mail system administrator! WARNING! Protect your privacy. Logout when you are done and completely exit your browser.”
The URL given on the Facebook post is already dead, but it’s likely the people behind this have mails targeting other types of account and deploying multiple phish page links.
In both examples, the scammers are using free AOL mail addresses – despite claiming to be from “The Outlook Team” – which should raise a few red flags.
AOL have confirmed the mail is a hoax, and recipients should safely deposit it in their Trash folder.
As for a few good ways to spot Phish in general, here’s ten top tips to stay safe while digging around in your mailbox.
Christopher Boyd
