Bonjour! C’est un PayPal phishing l’email

Pardon my French (literally), but a few minutes ago I received an interesting email supposedly from PayPal France.

The polyglot that I am (not!), I had to get help from a Language Translation site in order to decipher the message and, as expected, it is just one of those many PayPal phishing emails.

Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal one’s personal data such as credit card numbers, passwords, account login information, etc. Phishing emails are normally used to direct recipients to a fraudulent website where they are asked to provide personal information. This information is then used for identity theft.

The French PayPal email I got was no different from other spoof emails. All bore the warning that my PayPal account has been restricted and I need to access a certain website in order to lift the restriction.

Now the rule when receiving emails like these that ask you to login to a certain site: if the website’s URL does not appear to be the official URL of your bank, credit card company, or payment processor, don’t go there and don’t log in!

In my French email’s case, the PayPal login site was

https://paypol.0rg.fr/fr/cgi-bin/webscrcmd=_login-run/

Definitely NOT an official PayPal site (don’t be deceived by the similarity with the genuine PayPal site!).

For more tips on how to detect phishing emails, read the article What is Phishing?

Finally, c’est le Paypal phishing l’email:

from: “service@paypal.fr” <service@paypal.fr>
date: Sep 28, 2007 3:03 PM
subject: restriction d’accès à votre compte

Bonjour cher client ,

PayPal cherche constamment à assurer la sécurité en examinant régulièrement les Comptes sur son système. Nous avons récemment examiné votre compte et nous avons Besoin de plus d’informations pour nous permettre de vous fournir un service sécurisé.

Tant que nous ne pouvons pas collecter ces informations, votre accès aux fonction Confidentielles du compte demeure restreint. Nous nous excusons pour la gêne Occasionnée et espérons pouvoir restaurer l’accès à votre compte aussitôt que possible.

Lorsque vous aurez accompli toutes les étapes suivante l’accès à votre compte sera restaurer

1. cliquer ici. –> links to the fake PayPal site above
2. Identifier vous.
3. entrer le code de vérification suivant: lvSuA2X4WfB9V8KeWmUVn1bZ3swUP4Sl
4. valider.

Votre compte a été restreint . Il continuera à être restreint tant que ces condition ne sont pas rempli

Cordialement
PayPal

Translation:

from: “service@paypal.fr” <service@paypal.fr>
date: Sep 28, 2007 3:03 PM
subject: access control on your account

Hello dear customer,

PayPal constantly seeks to ensure the safety by regularly examining acounts on its system. We recently examined your account and we need additional information to allow us to provide you with a protected service. Unless we collect this information, your access to several functions of the account remains restricted. We ask your forgiveness for this and we hope to restore access on your account as soon as possible.

Access to your account will be restored after completing the following process:

1. click here. –> links to the fake PayPal site above
2. Identify yourself.
3. enter this verification code: lvSuA2X4WfB9V8KeWmUVn1bZ3swUP4Sl
4. validate.

Your account has been restricted. It will continue to be restricted as long as these conditions are not met.

Cordially,

PayPal

I probably would have fallen for this phishing scheme had the mail not been in French.

Naah, probablement pas.

PS. Thanks to altavista.com for the translation.