Suspicious email

Question

I have received the following (attached screenshot) email today, I haven't signed up for any service.

What is the best way forward to investigate this?

Answer 1

The most common explanations are either that someone accidentally entered your email address when trying to create a Microsoft account, or that the message is a phishing email made to look like Microsoft. Since you did not initiate any signup, you should treat it cautiously and avoid clicking any links or replying.

First, do not use any links or buttons in the email. Instead, independently open your browser and go directly to https://account.microsoft.com. Try signing in using your email address. If no account exists, Microsoft will tell you. You can also try the password reset flow on the official site; if it says no account is associated with your email, the message was likely either a phishing attempt or someone mistyped their address.

If an account does exist and you did not create it, immediately use the official password reset process to take control of it, set a strong unique password, and enable two-factor authentication. Then review recent activity at https://account.microsoft.com/security to check for suspicious sign-ins.

To help determine whether the message is phishing, check the full email headers and verify that it was actually sent from Microsoft’s mail servers and that links point to microsoft.com domains. Even if it looks legitimate, never trust the display name alone; only trust the actual sending domain and URLs.

If you confirm it is fraudulent, report it to Microsoft by forwarding the email as an attachment to ******@office365.microsoft.com, then delete it. If it is legitimate but triggered by someone else’s mistake, you can safely ignore it as long as you do not share the verification code.

As a precaution, ensure your email account itself has a strong password and two-factor authentication enabled, since verification emails can sometimes indicate that someone is testing whether your address is active.

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hth

Marcin