Understanding if your Outlook Message is spam or real
Wbile the topic of this article may seem obvious to some, there are many who wonder if an email they receive is real or spam especially when it’s something that purports to come from Microsoft about their email account or more specifically something asking for credentials to be confirmed.
No major organization will ever ask to click a link in the body of an email message to verify any kind of account whether it’s related to email or financial. These phishing types of emails most commonly target Paypal, Microsoft, Apple, banks and credit cards.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive article on spam/phishing in general but rather focus on verify links received in any email message are valid or not.
There’s a simple rule to follow – if you’re not sure about the authenticity of something, don’t click in it. However, there are two very simple and quick ways to check any link without clicking on it.
First, hover over the link and look down in the status bar to see where the link actually points to regardless of what the text shows in the email message.
Second, highlight the link, right-click and then select <Copy Shortcut>. Then paste that link into any text editor to see the actual URL that link is pointing to.
The following are two examples that highlight that “what you see is not what you get”
Example #1: Confirm you Paypal details by clicking here http//www.paypal.com (if you click on this link, it will bring you to www.microsoft.com)
Example #2: Your Apple account has been limited, Unlock you account (clicking on this link will bring you to Google.com)
In a nutshell, if you to verify anything, login into any account directly that is being referred to using your browser and NOT by clicking on the link received in any email. It’s no different then getting a phone call supposedly from your bank asking you to confirm your identity by providing your credentials like date of birth, social insurance number etc. It just doesn’t happen.
Category: Understanding Outlook
