A new AOL phishing scheme is out to scam unsuspecting users, by employing some old, tried-and-true fraud techniques to trick people…
There’s a not-very-novel phishing scam targeting AOL users. As per usual, the scheme seeks to fool people into giving up private authentication information. Also, the sham relies on some very convincing language and graphics to trick unwitting consumers. The email is designed to swindle personal login information by additionally playing on emotions to get people to take action.
New AOL Phishing Scam Uses Old Rip Off Techniques
Although AOL fell out of favor with consumers many years ago, there are still enough members to make the rip-off worthwhile. The most recent AOL phishing campaign was first discovered by BleepingComputer after the publication received emails from relatives who still maintained America Online accounts. Unsurprisingly, the message plays heavy on fear and anxiety to trick recipients to reveal their private authentication details.
“We don’t want to say goodbye!” The AOL phishing email begins. It continues on warn potential victims they have just 72 hours to preserve their accounts. Of course, the phishing email instructs recipients to take immediate action to verify their accounts. Otherwise, they will lose access to their email:
“We noticed you haven’t updated your account information recently, and since your security is our top priority, we plan to close this account as soon as possible. It’s going to take 3 days unless you act soon. Unless you verify this account, it will be closed in 72 hrs.”
Fortunately, the landing page is a poorly constructed Weebly web page. Anyone receiving this message should immediately report it to AOL.