This past weekend I received an email that REALLY looked like it came from LinkedIn. They clearly went to a lot of thought and effort to do this! Here’s what it looked like:
What I noticed that made it look legit…
First of all, I HAVE received messages when I logged in from a different location and it looks very similar to this. It also has the data details, which makes it look more authentic. Finally, they have trademark info and what appears to be company location information. If I didn’t know what to do next, I might have clicked the link!
Look Closely at the Email Content
Before I did anything, I realized that a few things looked “phishy” to me:
- They addressed me as “user”. I was pretty certain they usually use my first name in their emails.
- The trademark and company location are off. In every other LinkedIn email I’ve received, they reference their corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.
Below is a screenshot of a real email which I had received on behalf of a client when I started helping her with LinkedIn. (Sometimes hoarding emails pays off!)
The red arrows point to where my client’s name appears – note it is THREE times!
The blue arrow shows you that LinkedIn will ask you to verify a strange login with a code.
The yellow arrow points to the real trademark and company location information.
Email Address Check
Finally, my usual practice is to check the “from” email address, by clicking on the name of the sender. Here is what it was (note: I have to take a picture of it with my phone, so excuse the quality):
Notice anything? I’m pretty sure that no legitimate email from LinkedIn would come from a comcast.net email domain. Hence, it is not a true security email from LinkedIn.
Therefore, the bottom line is that scammers are getting better at scamming! Please be careful! I hope this helps and feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]Β if youΒ have any questions!