The Spam Gallery is a series of posts that give examples of spam messages, explaining telltales signs of how they are spam.
This message is spoofed as a Facebook notification. Here’s the signs of spam I see in this message:
- I don’t know the sender. If you are excited about getting a message from someone you don’t know, you need to learn restraint. The name is also in all caps, which is suspicious to a small degree.
- The message excerpt is very short and generic, hoping you will click the link for the full message.
- Hovering over any link shows that the address will take you somewhere other than Facebook. Even the profile image is suspect. Luckily, Outlook blocked all the images.
- Notice the notification date. Now look at the email send date. The spammer tried to make it seem like the notification had been sent right away, but the spammer is in another time zone, which made for a large gap in the time sent vs. the notification time.
Always check the links in an email before even downloading the images. If you don’t recognize the name, don’t assume it’s someone trying to be friendly.