Microsoft Account Protection Email - Legit or Not?

Question

Hi,

I've received a few emails from this sender: account-security-noreply @accountprotection.microsoft.com . I saw a similar post about this and noticed that if there any emails ending with @accountprotection.microsoft.com, is considered trustworthy. However, the content of the email seems dodgy to me. Please see attached image.

Answer 1

Hi. I'm Brian and I'll try to help.

The From address on a mail message is completely unrelated to the actual sender of the message, but legitimate senders will use the correct address in the From. The address you mention is a legitimate Microsoft address but that doesn't guarantee that a message with that From address is legitimate. The message whose image you included, however, appears to be legitimate. Log into https://account.live.com/activity and look for any successful logins or syncs from IP addresses you do not use. If you find any, your account has been compromised.

Sounds to me, though, that you should change your password to something long, complex and completely unique. Use a password manager to generate and remember the password. Never use password for more than one service. Every password you use should be unique. Once you've changed your password, visit https://account.live.com/proofs/manage , scroll down to the "Sign out everywhere" link and click it. This should disconnect all accesses to your account and since no one but you knows the new password, only you should be able to log back in.

Answer 2

>> I saw a similar post about this and noticed that if there any emails ending with @accountprotection.microsoft.com, is considered trustworthy.

NEVER trust an email by its appearance. It doesn't matter what sender's address shows. If you blindly trust it, you're 1 step closer to become a phishing victim.

In this case, the subject and content are exactly identical with the one I received when I request to sign in to my hotmail account. The email is sent to my recovery email. I have never received the email IF I don't ask for it.

Answer 3

Hi,

I received this exact same email and I don't think it is legitimate. I only have one Microsoft product to log into and I checked my activity log for successful and unsuccessful log in attempts. I have had zero attempts by anyone but me, so I know no one tried to log in. Also, why would Microsoft send a code to my email when I am having trouble logging into my email? I have had to reset my password before from forgetting and Microsoft always sends me a code to a connected email, not the one I am trying to get into; that would be pointless. It would make sense if I had multiple Microsoft products, but I don't. Microsoft has also never called it a single use code, that seemed really off to me as well. Just a heads up for anyone that may get this in the future. Don't click on any links in this email. If you are questioning it, log into your account separately and check the activity to see if someone is attempting to access your account. If you have unsuccessful log ins you don't recognize, change your password. However, the fact that I don't have unsuccessful attempts, just me logging in, makes me highly suspicious that is a fake email.

Answer 4

I personally have not, but I know of people who have and it's usually because their password is known to the hacker but they have two-factor authentication enabled to send a code to an alternate email address the hacker cannot access and so the hacker doesn't get logged in.