Microsoft don’t do prize draws, sorry

Our Chief Security Advisor in the UK has sent out an advisory this morning. We have seen a huge spike in Lottery scam mails – you know the kind of thing – “You’ve won a million, just send us your bank details so we can pay you”. These have a new twist. Supposedly Microsoft (and in some cases Microsoft UK) is the promoter and is giving away hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Now I hope anyone getting such a mail would have a very hard look for some of the tell tale signs of scam, and would also wonder why a company like Microsoft would do such a draw in the first place, and perhaps why the first they hadn’t heard about it until being told they’d won ?

If something seems too good to be true it usually is. I Putting the senders name (or other unique information from the message) into your favourite search engine will show up a raft of sites which cover hoaxes.

Tagged as Microsoft Lotery Scam Hoax