Outlook Phishing Scam - "Your Email Account Will be Blocked in the Next 24 Hours"

Scamming - Fraud

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Apr. 4, 2015

The email messages below which claim that the recipients' email accounts will be blocked, are phishing scams designed to steal Microsoft Hotmail/Live/Outlook user names and passwords. The email messages were not sent by Microsoft, but by cyber-criminals, whose intentions are to hijack email accounts and use them fraudulently. So, recipients of the same email messages are advised to delete them, and not to follow the instructions in them.

The Phishing Microsoft Outlook Emails

Outlook.com

Dear Customer,
Your email account will be blocked in the next 24 hours if you refuse to upgrade your account now
Login here to upgrade
You have most upgrade now to the newest Outlook Mail to avoid account closure.
Once your account is upgraded, we will restore your account to its normal state.
Outlook Team
Copyright © 2013 Mail! Inc
Outlook! Team

Subject: We've get some unsual activity on your PαyPαl account‏‏
Pαy-PαI (da@apadakah.net)
Account Service – this mail is sent to %EMAIL% please be sure your security is our priority
PayPal
Your account will be blocked after 24 hours due our new security update.
Dear Valued costumer our service has been updated for new work and we will Block Your Account after 24 hours if you don’t update your information from link below.
Now all you need to do is Just follow these steps to activate your account.
Please complete all steps to get your account confirmed .

The links in the email messages go 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 messages. And, if there is anything wrong with your account, it will be shown to you after signing into it.

Now, if you were tricked by the phishing email, please change your 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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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.

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