The email message below with which claims that the recipients should upgrade their Microsoft email account is a phishing scam sent by cybercriminals to frighten the recipients into clicking on a link within the same email message. The link in the fake email message goes to a phishing website that will ask the recipients who have clicked on it to sign-in with their user names and passwords to upgrade their Hotmail, Outlook or Live accounts. But, once the requested information is submitted, it will be sent to the cybercriminals behind the phishing scam to protect against phishing scams, online users are asked not to click on a link to sign into their online accounts.
The "Microsoft Account E-mail Upgrade" Phishing Email
From: Verification alert <walidabutalib_8@hotmail.com>
Sent: April 25, 2017 4:04 AM
To: no_reply@outlook.com
Subject: E-mail Upgrade
E-mail Upgrade
We are asking users to upgrade due to recent security incidents online.
This is for your own safety to continue using your account, click the Update now button below.
Update Nοw
To opt out or change where you receive security notifications, click here.
Nοte: Please do nοt ignore this email to avοid your account been closed
Thanks,
The Micrοsοft account team.
Once cybercriminals have gotten their potential victims’ account credentials (usernames and passwords), they will use it to hijack their Microsoft accounts and use them fraudulently. Therefore, recipients of the phishing email message (see below) who were tricked into clicking on the link within it and have attempted to sign into the phishing or fake website that they were taken, are asked to change their Microsoft account passwords immediately, before they are hijacked and used fraudulently by cyber criminals.
Hotmail or Microsoft email account users who have received suspicious email messages can verify the authenticity of email messages, but going directly to www.hotmail.com, www.live.com or www.outlook.com and sign into their accounts from there. If there is something wrong with their accounts, they will be notified once they have signed in.