Phishing email: increase the storage capacity of your email account
- Updated at March 19, 2021
- By Gatefy
- Blog, Threat Research
A dangerous email phishing attack is circulating on the web. It says that your email account’s storage capacity or quota is running out. To free up more space, you must click on a malicious link. The threat was detected and blocked by Gatefy’s secure email gateway solution.
“Your email quota has reached 98% and will soon exceed its limit. Follow the URL below to upgrade your quota to 25GB for free to avoid loss of email data”, says the malicious email.
Whoever clicks on the malicious link is redirected to a fake website that aims to collect and steal personal information. In fact, the consequences of an email phishing attack can be disastrous.
Table of Contents
Analyzing the phishing scam
In this email scam specifically, it’s important to analyze 4 common key points that are generally used in phishing attacks.
1. Sense of urgency
According to the malicious email, you have only 2% of your email capacity available. That is, you need to do something quickly or your email will stop. Therefore, you run the risk of losing important data and perhaps making new business.
2. Target
At the top of the message, it says “attention” plus your email address. By using the word attention and describing your email, the message becomes more persuasive as it implies that the email is really for you and that the sender knows you.
3. Bait
According to the email, if you access the link and follow the step by step, you will have access to an additional 25GB of free storage. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?
4. Fake sender
At the bottom of the message, the email signature is “Email Administrator”. In addition, the sender’s email address is [email protected], which can trick many people.
Blocking phishing attacks
Phishing was the cybercrime with the highest number of victims in 2019. According to the FBI, the damage amounts to almost USD 58 million.
To avoid phishing attacks, you need to read emails carefully. That is, check out sender and website addresses, and don’t click on suspicious links and attachments.
To help your company fight phishing and other threats, Gatefy provides different email protection solutions. Request more information or a demo of our solutions: Secure Email Gateway and domain protection solution based on DMARC.
Check out the malicious email in full
The email content is reproduced as we detect it, including any grammatical errors.
“Attention: ([email protected])
Your email quota has reached 98% and will soon exceed its limit.
Follow the URL below to upgrade your quota to 25GB for free to avoid loss of email data.
Upgrade Email Quota
Source: Email Administrator.”
