I almost got a relation into serious trouble today when they asked me to examine a PayPal email. It was a very official looking email, all professional, no mistakes, perfect PayPal fonts and colours. The email said that there was a limitation placed on an account due to suspicious activity.
Concerned at its veracity, I checked the email address and it was the service@intl.paypal.com which is one of their official emails (I would later check the address side-by-side with a genuine email and they were identical). Reassured I clicked on the link to to what I thought was the official site. I logged the relation in and only then did I look at the URL - www.pagpai.com - I could have swore I saw www.paypal.com when I looked at the URL from the link. I'm confident that it redirected though I'm not 100 per cent certain.
Anyway it was a phishing site though not of the usual calibre of work you'd expect. To me, apart from the URL, this one was indistinguishable from the genuine one. The English was perfect and all the details were there (though I realise how easy it is to copy CSS files.
I changed the relation's password a few minutes later before passing the email on to PayPal. No harm done but I doubt I was the only one to give them a password and I'd don't think I'm wrong in saying that others may be out of pocket.
There must be a serious flaw in the PayPal system. Either their email address system is completely compromised, they are a victim of social engineering or there is a flaw that allows hackers to intercept/spoof PayPal's emails.
Considering the amount of Endless Sphere users that use PayPal - be very careful. It seems the only way to be sure now is to open a new tab and then go into PayPal direct because you can't trust their email system.
Concerned at its veracity, I checked the email address and it was the service@intl.paypal.com which is one of their official emails (I would later check the address side-by-side with a genuine email and they were identical). Reassured I clicked on the link to to what I thought was the official site. I logged the relation in and only then did I look at the URL - www.pagpai.com - I could have swore I saw www.paypal.com when I looked at the URL from the link. I'm confident that it redirected though I'm not 100 per cent certain.
Anyway it was a phishing site though not of the usual calibre of work you'd expect. To me, apart from the URL, this one was indistinguishable from the genuine one. The English was perfect and all the details were there (though I realise how easy it is to copy CSS files.
I changed the relation's password a few minutes later before passing the email on to PayPal. No harm done but I doubt I was the only one to give them a password and I'd don't think I'm wrong in saying that others may be out of pocket.
There must be a serious flaw in the PayPal system. Either their email address system is completely compromised, they are a victim of social engineering or there is a flaw that allows hackers to intercept/spoof PayPal's emails.
Considering the amount of Endless Sphere users that use PayPal - be very careful. It seems the only way to be sure now is to open a new tab and then go into PayPal direct because you can't trust their email system.