14 DAY TRIAL // Computer users in the US have been delivered fake email messages claiming to be from AOL webmail provider and informing that the storage limit for the inbox has been exceeded.
This is another attempt from crooks to steal the username and password for the service by pointing unsuspecting users to a website impersonating the AOL log in page.
The message should ring alarm bells right from the start, as no respectable webmail provider would find itself notifying users that there is no more space in the data center to store their messages.
If this does not signal anything wrong to you, then the fact that the 1GB storage limit has been maxed out should definitely come as a warning of something fishy happening.
An inbox with this much email is an extremely heavy one, and should contain a plethora of messages with the maximum level of information permitted by the provider, which is usually 25MB.
If the user falls into the trap and accesses a link in the message that purports to offer some sort of “renewal” of the mailbox, they are taken to a phishing website that asks to log into the AOL account; any information entered in the fields, however, is automatically sent to the cybercriminals.
To incite clicking on the link, the perp says that email exchange has been halted until the renewal action is completed.