Email from "hotmail.com Secure Email"

Question

Email from "hotmail.com Secure Email"

Anonymous

My old hotmail.com email address is associated with my outlook.com email address. I received an email yesterday to my hotmail.com address with this heading: "Mailbox Quota Exceeded Sunday, January 9, 2022 12:36 a.m."

This was the email:

(My Hotmail address name),

Account Update Notification alert time
Sunday, January 9, 2022 12:36 a.m.

Follow the attached instruction to update your account to avoid deactivation

Thanks

hotmail.com
Technical team

The email included a link to: UPDATE-YOUR-ACCOUNT.HTML

I don't want my hotmail.com address to be deactivated, but was this a phishing scam?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

3 answers

Answer 1

Hello genep

Hi, I'm Karl and will be happy to help you today.

That would be a phishing email trying to get the account log in credentials. Microsoft would never send you an email like that especially with a link stating "Update your account"

#1 - If you are using a free version of Outlook, you can easily check the space used by your mail box using the following link

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/options/general...

#2 - If you are using a <Premium> Outlook.com account, click on the <Diamond> (Premium Settings> icon (top right)

Answer 2

Thank you very much for your response, Karl. I never click on a link in an email unless I am certain that it is legitimate, and I was definitely skeptical of this one. I am using the free version of Outlook. I was already aware that I am using only 1.28 GB of the 15 GB of storage space available. Since both email addresses are associated with the same Microsoft account, I didn't see any reason why the Hotmail address would have exceeded its quota. I just wanted to make sure that there isn't a separate quota for old Hotmail addresses. I am now totally convinced that there is no actual problem.

Answer 3

Your welcome.

#1 - You are correct - every alias email address in an account always uses the same mailbox storage

#2 - Whenever you get a suspicious message (from anyone) asking you to click on a link in the message, it is always a good idea to first check the underlying URL that the link points to by hovering your mouse over the link or right-clicking on the link --> select <Copy> --> paste it into any text editor.

#3 - While this isn't directly related to your original question, the following is a standard reply I give to those who ask about a sudden increase in <spam> and <unexpected> log in attempts which you may find of interest. It may explain how the spammer got your Hotmail address

The usual source of a sudden increase in failed login attempts or spam mail received is that the email address was harvested by a hacker who breached a data base on a website where you subscribed to something. That database gets repeatedly sold to other hackers/spammers on the dark web.

Many people think that hackers penetrate the actual Microsoft servers to gain access to email accounts when that isn't the case. Instead they gain access to an actual account via any number of other ways including phishing emails.

You can check to see if the email address comes up on a breached database on the following website created/run by Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Pwned websites

https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites#Epik

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Email from "hotmail.com Secure Email"

3 answers