Adwords Phishing Mails
April 3rd, 2008Be Aware of Google Adwords Phishing Emails
We and some of our clients have started to receive a lot of phishing emails that claim to be from Google Adwords.
These emails generally have the sender as “Google AdWords-noreply” and the subject header of “Please re-activate your account” or similar.
When the email is opened it looks like a genuine email that claims to be from the people at Google Adwords. The email then encourages you to click through to what looks like a genuine log-in web page for a Google Adwords account and then ‘reactivate your account’ or ‘change your credit card details’ by first logining in with your Adwords Username and Password.
The web page you click through to is very well produced and could easily fool all but the very wary as it looks exactly like the genuine Google Adwords login-page. But it isn’t (take a close look at the web address).
These emails and the resulting login pages are not from Google, but are illegal phishing emails designed to collect account Usernames and Passwords from unwary Google Adwords customers.
Once the Username and Passwords have been gathered, the User’s real Adwords account is accessed and credit card information is stolen by the people sending the phishing emails out.
If you receive such an email, delete it immediately.
If you feel you’ve been fooled into giving your Username and Password (it’s an easy trap to fall into) – then immediately go to your Google Adwords account and change your password.
Be vigilant.
