Beware of e-mail requesting “Confirm your unsubscribe”

Email phishing

A long lasting scam email campaign that claims to be a confirmation request for a unsubscribe has recently been updated. Never click or respond to these e-mails because they are designed to collect working e-mail addresses or perform some other kind of scam.

Last week we saw a constant stream of e-mails, such as “Confirm Your unsubscribe request” or “Customer #980920318 To STOP Receive These e-mails from us”

While this is a long-term email scam, we’ve come across it for the first time, so we thought we should be alert. These scam emails contain no indication what you are unsubscribing from and simply state, unlike normal unsubscribe notifications:

Please_confirm your Unsubscribe

To confirm your Unsubscribe, please click here or on the link below.

Unsubscribe me!

Thank you!

Moreover, these emails come in a number of templates, some of which look more professional than the one below.

variant-1

More professional looking scam email variant

While others, not so much.

variant-2

Not-so-professional scam email variant

If you want problems and click the unsubscribe button, you will compose a new “Unsubscribe” message with no message bodies and want to send the e-mail to between fifteen and twenty e-mail addresses. These email addresses are for domains of the free dynamic DNS service hosted by noip.com.

send-email

Sending unsubscribe email to 15+ email addresses

Of course, you should definitely not send an email to these spammers and simply delete the email.

What happens if I unsubscribe?

You may wonder what happens if you send this email withdrawal. I certainly don’t know, but I got some ideas.

Spammers create “live” or active e-mail lists for more lucrative e-mail scams, like phishing, diet pills, vitamins and loans.

In answering spammers, you tell the scammers they have a “live one” and you add it to a list of active email accounts for other scams.  These email lists may then be sold or used for their own purposes to other scammers.

Knowing this, never respond to and delete spammer emails. If you answer, you’ll get more spam in your inbox.

 

Mark Funk
Mark Funk is an experienced information security specialist who works with enterprises to mature and improve their enterprise security programs. Previously, he worked as a security news reporter.