Besides Gmail, I get the same thing for Yahoo, PayPal, Banks, UPS + DHL + FedEx delivery notifications (with attached viruses), etc., and in every instance, the body of the email is very well done, with identical company logos and images. Looking at the email headers or the HTML source code, is when you can tell where it's coming from and/or where the links are being redirected to but the Spammers are counting on people who do not know these things and that's when they fall prey!
Few of those look very real to me. The give away is, "gmail user" or "Paypal user." In every case of legitimate email, I can recall, they refer to you by your real or user name.
Why not? I don't call falling for a fake site being trusting. By now most people that use the internet know (or should know) about this sort of scam. You will never be asked this sort of information by a legitimate outfit. I mean just look at the example posted. First off it doesn't even identify the loser user. What if you don't even have a Gmail account? If you are regularly accessing you Gmail account you will know if you account is working or not. If you are stupid enough to give the information requested then you deserve the results. This has nothing to do with trust.
Nah, not really. There are a lot of people out there that just aren't savvy or aware enough. Place yourself in the shoes of an senior citizen that has only recently started using the computer to email family etc. (I know quite a few). So their kid or grandkid sets them up with a gmail account and everyday they login, check email, log out. To most of us on this board, we would never think twice about falling for a simple phishing scheme, but to them, where every email looks "normal", maybe they click a link and enter information thinking they're supposed to. There are a lot of uninformed people out there. Not picking on senior citizens, just using them as an example.
True enough, but why is it they are not savvy or aware? Those same kids or grandkids should be enlightening those grandparents. I've done that with a lot of my friends, the majority are over 50. I also do that with my own kids. It's very simple to do and it works.
I think, that you referring to it like: "Only the Strongest (Smartest) Survive". Well in a way, you are right, PC is like a weapon these days (botnets, etc), so using it should be licenced like a weapon. I can imagine, that you could use/buy a PC only with licence, which could be gained by filling "a simple", but reasonable test.
You talk like this because you know at least a bit about computing and scams, and you know what phishing is. Not everybody who uses a computer is a "computer lover", nor a "privacy lover"... actually most people who use a computer know only the basics of it (turn it on, open Word, send email, turn it off). And most of such people, has nobody to advise them about a secure way of computing and internet surfing. This isn't a good reason for them to deserve to have their password and other credential stolen. After all, you are probably a conscious computer user, but for sure you are a non-conscious user of something else. So how would you feel if somebody conscious in this other thing told you that you deserved your bad because of your non-being conscious?
