Analysis of a phishing email
I received this email at my work email address, it appeared in my Junk E-mail folder in Outlook. This is kind of unusual since I rarely receive spam at work, I think we must have pretty good spam filters.
Clues that the email is not legitimate
People who speak the English language rarely use the term "Congratulation" in the singular form, as in the subject field of this email.
The email address winner@freelotto.co.uk is not my email address, there's no reason why my email wouldn't appear on an email to me, unless it's a bulk email, and I don't think a large number of people won $2M.
The sender's email address is (purportedly) by-joc@sympatico.ca, which is a free webmail address from an ISP in Canada. A legitimate email would be from an organization.
You wouldn't expect an email from Canada for a UK lottery, or vice versa.
"You won" is kind of abrupt; most would use "You have won" or "You've won". "Advice" should be "advised", and the language "get back to us" is very informal compared to the rest of the sentence. Overall it looks like it was written by a non-English speaker, which is unusual for a British official but may be normal for a Canadian.
"Arehereby" is a typo, also the language seems overly stern for a congratulatory email. You would expect an email of this type to have been proofread.
If this is an email from a lottery in the UK, you would expect the winning amount in British pounds "£2,000,000.00" or euros "€2,000,000.00", not in dollars "$2,000,000.00".
The email provides a third email address for contact, from a third ISP which turns out to be a free webmail address from an ISP in the UK.
The weirdly punctuated list of personal information to be provided to claim the prize. It doesn't seem normal to request the sex of the winner.
-----Original Message-----
From: by-joc@sympatico.ca [mailto:by-joc@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 8:56 AM
To: winner@freelotto.co.uk
Subject: Congratulation
You won the sum of $2,000,000.00 you arehereby advice to get back to us, to claim your prize.
Contact Mr. Richard Smith
Email: (contactrichardsmith01@btinternet.com)
Claims Requirements:
1.Full Names:2.Home Address:3.Sex:
4.Phone Number:5 .Nationality
Clues that the email is not legitimate


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