Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.

"Someone Tried to use an Application to Sign in to Your Microsoft Account" Phishing Scam
Someone Tried to use an Application to Sign in to Your Microsoft Account Phishing Scam

The email message below which claims that the recipients' email accounts will be closed or hijacked because someone used an application to sign into them from a particular location, is a phishing scam designed to steal Microsoft user names and passwords. The email message was not sent by Microsoft, but by cyber-criminals, whose intentions are to hijack email accounts and use them for malicious purposes. So, recipients of the same email message are advised to delete and do not follow the instructions in it.

The Phishing Microsoft Email

Dear User,

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Microsoft account on. Wednesday, Aprril 9th, 2015 10:26 AM GMT IP Address: 70.193.136.25 Location: United States (USA)

However, we blocked this attempt because we could not identify if it was you. Please confirm that this action was made by you by verifying your account with us.

Verify Account Failure to verify might lead to account Hijack or closure within 24 hours

Sincerely

© Microsoft 2015.

The link in the email message goes to a fake Outlook or Microsoft website, which will attempt to trick the cyber-criminals' potential victims into entering their usernames and passwords on it.

If the potential victims enter their Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail, Live usernames and passwords on the fake website, it will be sent to the cyber-criminals behind the email scam, who will use the information to hijack their accounts.

If you have received the same email message, please go directly to your email account instead of clicking on the links in the email message. And, if there is anything wrong with your account, it will be shown to you after signing into account.

If you were tricked by the phishing email, please change your Microsoft Hotmail/Live/Outlook immediately. If you are unable to, click here to report it to Microsoft.

This scam is similar to the following:

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