By Graham K. Rogers

I am always suspicious when I am sent unusual emails from Apple. I do have a number each month, but most are quickly identified as valid messages. This morning I had a phishing attempt that purported to be from Apple. The theme of the message was that my Apple ID was suspended - cue panic - and that I should click on this link to validate. I never do this anyway, so if a message from (say) PayPal arrives asking me to confirm information, I trash the mail and access the site directly. My first warning was, "Dear Customer" - I have a name; and Apple uses that.

As a quick check, I ran the cursor over the link and found it was designed to send me to "http://gb-url.com/" - no thanks.

Several items of information do not match including the mail address for any of my Apple ID accounts and the sender, "noreply@appleid.ssl.com" - well that ain't Apple.

A quick look at the message header using Mail's View > Message > Raw Source menu item, shows me that this was not sent from Apple and that the text was written using Outlook Express. The next line in the header also confirms "Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000". Apple . . . Microsoft?

If I have been sent one of these, the chances are that others will have received them. Beware: they are out to get you.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.