How to Spot the Hotmail Hoax

A new Hotmail hoax email is sweeping across the internet and filling inboxes under the guise of being a message from Windows Live. It targets the owners of Hotmail accounts (Hotmail is run under the Windows Live umbrella of products), and is apparently used to harvest personal information. Scams like this one can also be found through internet pop-ups. Having an up to date antivirus software will help protect you from other scams.

Here are the contents of the Hotmail hoax email message:

Dear Account User,

Your Windows-Live Account details are required for account upgrade.

Incomplete details and wrong passwords forwarded may result in account closure for security reasons.

Kindly confirm by filling the information's below urgently for the exercise upon receipt of this notification to avoid deactivation.
Full Name: ...................

User Name: ......................

Password: .........................

Date of Birth: ....................

Country or Territory: ...............

Note: YOUR DETAILS WILL NOT BE SHARED.

We'll keep making Windows Live MSN! the best email service around.

Sincerely,

Windows Live Team

While this nearly looks like an official and convincing email, it is unfortunately only one of many similar emails routinely sent out by scammers.

How can you tell it's a fake? The easiest way to spot one of these types of phishing emails is to look at the information it’s asking you to provide. Microsoft – through Hotmail, Windows Live or any other product – will never ask you for your password, username, country, date of birth, credit card information or any other type of personal information in an unsolicited email message, ever.

If a legitimate company needs your information, it will send you an email with a link to its website so that you can fill in your information on a secure server. For one thing, large companies don't have time to process information by reading through hundreds of thousands of individual emails. Plus, they know that email is not a safe way to send personal information.

Another tip-off is the sender’s email address. Look for official Microsoft email addresses. If the message is sent by any other email addresses, it’s a sure sign that the email is a fake. For example, the email detailed above was sent from the address windowsliveteamsupport8349@msn.com. While the fake support email address looks somewhat believable, a real email from MSN support wouldn't be from a generic @msn.com account and would look more like this real Windows Live email address: alerts@officeliveemail.com. Notice that the real email address is not from a standard MSN or Hotmail account, but from a corporate account. You can tell if an email is from a corporate account by looking at the name after the @ symbol.

The directive to act immediately is another sign that this email is a hoax. It tries to scare recipients into action. Fear can make people act without thinking, and scammer's know this and use it to make their jobs a lot easier. Legitimate emails might have a time limit, but they will not sensationalize that fact.

Also, scam emails often have blatant misspellings or lines that don't make any sense. For example, the line, "Kindly confirm by filling the information's below urgently for the exercise upon receipt of this notification to avoid deactivation," from the sample email sounds like it was badly translated from another language, which is a major red flag.

So, if you find an email similar to this one in your inbox, go ahead and delete it worry free. Your Hotmail and Windows Live accounts will remain active and you will avoid being scammed by yet another Hotmail hoax.

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