Your smartphone vibrates and an email pops up: “Unusual login activity detected on your account.” For many users, this is a moment of panic. Are you experiencing a real hacker attack? Has your email account been hacked? Or is the message itself the actual attack?
Security warnings from Google, Microsoft, Amazon or your bank are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they are an important early warning system for nipping identity theft in the bud. On the other hand, cybercriminals like to exploit this moment of shock to lure you to manipulated login pages with fake alerts.