It looks like another batch of very realistic phishing emails are doing the rounds.  I received the following email from a friend this morning.

Hiii!
long time no see? …
anyway here you go
Interesting… :>
It’s Easy, Secure and Free!
Try it Now, Click Here
Regards

I immediately knew something was up simply because my friend would never word emails in this way, but out of curiosity, and making sure my firewall was on and my anti-virus software was up to date, I clicked on the link (which I’ve removed here for obvious reasons)

You’ll see in the image above, this link has nothing to do with Microsoft, and despite the fact that on the screenshot below it says secure site in big text, you’ll notice the complete absence of a padlock in the address bar.

I thought this one needed highlighting as the quality of the site I was directed to is extremely high, certainly the best I’ve seen yet, and the use of English was also higher than I’m used to seeing in phishing emails.

Although I wasn’t fooled by the language in the emails, many people may receive this email purportedly being from a friend who they could believe would actually use language in this way.

As always, the rule is you should beware what information you give to who.  While this website may seem very innocuous by the usual standards of phishing emails, the information it asks for will give full access to your email account and maybe more, should you use the same email/password combination for other websites.