The email message below which claims the recipients' Microsoft accounts have reached an upgraded stage, is a phishing scam sent by cyber criminals, and not by Microsoft. The fake email message was created by cyber criminals to frighten and trick the recipients into clicking on the link within it. The link goes to a phishing website or a fake website looking like Microsoft’s website, created by cyber criminals to trick potential victims into entering their Microsoft account usernames and passwords on it, by asking them to sign in. But, any attempts to sign into the fake website, will result in the victims’ Microsoft account usernames and passwords being sent to cyber criminals.
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.
Sample of the "Your Microsoft Account has Reached an Upgrade" Phishing Scam
From: Windows_live update <user-maintenance-team1001@outlook.com>
Sent: June 6, 2017 7:44 PM
To: member_service@outlook.com
Subject: Your Microsoft account has reached an Upgrade
E-mail Upgrade
Your Microsoft account has reached an Upgrade stage. Verify Your User Email to continue usage.
This is for your own safety to continue using your account, click the button below.
Update Now
To opt out or change where you receive security notifications, click here.
Note: Please do not ignore this email to avoid your account been closed
Thanks,
The Microsoft account team.
Microsoft users should never click on a link to sign into their accounts, they should instead, go directly to https://account.microsoft.com/ and sign-in from there. If there is something that needs to be done to their accounts, they will be notified. This is will prevent Microsoft users from visiting phishing websites disguised as legitimate Microsoft website that steal account credentials.