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Phishing Email Example: "Subject: update" (to CS students, at least)

June 20, 2015

This example is pretty flagrant in many respects.   The grammar is very bad (note the first sentence is not even a complete sentence).    It does not come from a Stanford address (what is telkomsa.net?)  It is signed "Standford".   The email is addressed to "info@cs.stanford.edu".  Even if that is a legitimate address, it would clearly go to a very large number of people, but the email itself suggests that the individual recipient's account has been compromised.  And, of course, the email includes a link to click where the recipient is supposed to "update settings".    Do not trust links like this, especially when they do not even pretend to go to a stanford.edu site.  

From: Help Desk <online2793774@telkomsa.net>
Date: June 20, 2015 at 7:57:55 AM PDT
To: info@cs.stanford.edu
Subject: update

It had been detected that your cs-stanford-edu email account. Mail delivery system had been affected with virus. Your email account had been sending virus included with your mail to recipient's account and as such a threat to our database. You'll need to update the settings on your cs-stanford-edu email account by clicking on this link: http://forms.logiforms.com/formdata/user_forms/66949_9366478/321793

From
CS. Standford
ITS Helpdesk

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