According to this email, which purports to be from Apple, your account was accessed in another location and the company considers this suspicious. The email urges you to open an attached file for details.
However, the email is not from Apple. Instead, it is an attempt to trick you into divulging your personal and financial information to online criminals.
Clicking the PDF file attached to the initial email opens a seemingly official Apple security notification that supposedly provides information about the suspicious login attempt. The message claims that you should click a link and change your password as soon as possible.
If you do follow the link in the PDF, you will be taken to a fraudulent website that has been built to emulate a genuine Apple sign in page.
Once on the fake site, you will be asked to sign in with your Apple ID. Next, you will be asked to provide your credit card details and other personal information, ostensibly as a means of verifying your identity and securing your account.
You will then be redirected to the real Apple website. But, now, criminals can collect the information you provided and use it to hijack your Apple account, conduct fraudulent transactions with your credit card, and attempt to steal your identity.
Service providers may sometimes send out alert emails if your account has been accessed from a new browser or device. However, these genuine alert emails will not ask you to open attached files or demand that you click a link to log in and verify your account.
Apple customers are almost continually targeted via such phishing scams. Some versions, like the one discussed here, are crudely rendered and can be easily recognized as suspect by poor or unusual spelling and grammar and an unprofessional appearance. Others may be considerably more sophisticated.
The Apple support website includes information about identifying and reporting scam emails.
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An example of the scam message:
Initial scam email
Attached PDF
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Brett Christensen
