Warning: Paypal Phishing Website
Posted in PayPal, Security | By AhTim @ May 12th, 2008
Today I received a letter from Paypal in my hotmail. The letter mentioned that Paypal has upgraded its system and ask me to update my information.
By looking at it, it look exactly the same format with normal Paypal email. Before I click on the link to update my information, I noticed 2 weird things.
First is on its email address. The email address from paypal@alert.com which is not originated from paypal.com. Second thing is on its link. When I point my cursor to the link, my firefox (fortunately Firefox show link url, IE not) show it is pointing to paypale.co.cc which is also not original paypal official website.
The Prove of Phishing Website
Hence, I doubt on its request.I did a whois search on Domain Tools and found the website url co.cc is a free domain register for blog! This mean it is just a free blog service provider. Someone has registered it and make it a phishing or scam website.
I do a search search the email address in Google, it links me to PhishTank and showed it is 100% confirmed phish website. I browse to its mainpage, it does not show anything but a few paragraphs of French words (took me minutes to try an error on Google translate to search for its original language 
). The content to inform the own of this website of its FTP account has been sent to his email.
After confirmed it is a phishing website, I click on “report as phishing” to hotmail. Fortunately I do not logon to their websit. If not they got my password and my Paypal’s earnings gone! Just to remind you, becareful when login to those bank account. Make sure it is an official website before you login! 
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Tags: PayPal, phishing, website security
May 13th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hello, just a hint, usually before I click anything in an email I move my cursor over the link they’ve given me to click. If it brings up some weird address at the bottom of my screen that’s not what I’ve expected (PayPal, Ebay, my bank name, etc.) then I know it’s a scam and don’t click it. Usually the phishing address will be something really, really long. These scammers are getting far too sophisticated in creating these emails and fake pages, it’s pretty scary.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
@Shannon: Thanks for the tips. Check the links before login
May 15th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Good intelligent research work done.Using google is a good idea.
@Shannon; Good tips.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
@Agent: Thanks. I am always alert on security issue. Do you face this before?
September 27th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I just received a spam email that I knew later it was a spam after searching from Google, telling me that I should upgrade my paypal acc. Unfortunately I clicked on paypal link read paypal.com. It brought me to http://www.paypal.com.
I supplied some information to change my password. The site asked me to provide with answers for 2 security questions I choose. And also the 4 last digit of my driving license and complete phone number. Now, I am not sure whether http://www.paypal.com I have been brought to by the clicking is the original site or not, and were my secret info stolen? Any clue will be appreciated. Thnak you.
September 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
@Adit: Suggest you to change your Paypal password immediately. Or contact Paypal support to suspend any new transaction.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:54 am
[...] hotmail. I read an article on PayPal Phishing website on 13th of this month. The article was titled Warning: Paypal Phishing Website . I concluded that scams are increasing. And now I recently have received emails in my Gmail [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Thank you for your help.