Apple products have been on fire lately. Apple stock is equally hot. The reason for these events is simple. People like simplicity and Apple helps them get there. Queue the upbeat, snazzy music and enter the Apple ID. For those who don’t know, your Apple ID is the way users access all things Apple. From I-Tunes to the App Store, you gotta have one to buy stuff, sync your devices, etc. With so much power behind one simple ID and password combination, is there any doubt the scammers would like to nab yours?
This past week, I received an email claiming to be from “Apple Support.” The email was simple and to the point—my Apple ID had been suspended. The important part is included here.
Apple Security Department has sent this email to inform you the following:
Your account has been flagged for review and your access was suspended until further notice.
This may be due to either of the following reasons:
* Billing / Payment Issues
* Abuse & Terms of Use Issues
We strongly suggest you to review and confirm your account information today by following the link below:
You should be able to guess where this is going. If your choice was “scam,” congratulations, you’re a winner (Congratulations! You get to avoid huge headaches and bills from the real Apple!). It appears that scammers have decided they don’t necessarily need to hack your Mac to get to the good stuff, all they need is get access to that prized Apple ID. This same scam has been used so many different times with other big names as the lure—Verizon, Microsoft, US banks, foreign banks—need I go on?
If you receive this type of email, look for the following clues that it’s a scam:
- It’s not addressed to you personally
- The sender is a generic name (in my case, it was “Apple.”)—duh—and the sender’s email address isn’t from the company (in this case it was toluna.com—another duh for the scammer, that’s a social media site)
- The email subject is something inane. In this email it was [notice][37888]. Methinks maybe the scammer hasn’t quite mastered his mail merge program yet.
What should you do if you get the Apple ID email? Ignore it. Then, fire up your Apple device and enjoy the simplicity.
