Fake PayPal Account Review Notification doing rounds

An email notification supposedly sent by PayPal saying that an intrusion into the user’s account has been detected is currently hitting inboxes around the world.

“We have limited access to your account due to this problem. Moreover, we have sent you an attachment which contains all the necessary steps in order to restore your account access. Please download and open it in your browser,” urges the email signed with “PayPal Account Review Team”.

When downloaded and opened, the attached Review.html file looks a lot like a legitimate PayPal page for updating one’s profile:

But it’s a fake – a phishing page set up by cyber crooks to collect the target’s personally identifiable information (name on the card, date of birth, Social Security number and more).

Aside for a small number of mistakes contained in the text of the email, there is one rather obvious thing that should tip off users to the real nature of this email: the sender’s email address is definitely not associated with PayPal.

Things like this might not get noticed on first reading, but can definitely make the recipient feel something is off. “If it doesn’t feel right, then it’s not,” says Sophos’ David Schwartzberg, and advises: “Go with your gut!”