I, too, received an email claiming I may get several thousand dollars from Microsoft for participating in an email test. From a friend, no less! Microsoft is not going to give someone several thousand dollars for forwarding a few emails. Besides, the email had several poorly constructed sentences and many misspellings. Other friends have received emails claiming they won the Microsoft lottery.
Fortunately Microsoft has a few ways of recognizing email scams. If you are using Outlook a digital signature may be attached to a genuine Microsoft email. Read about the digital signature from Microsoft.
To summarize:
- Microsoft does not send software updates as attachments.
- Legitimate updates have a valid Microsoft Web address
- Legitimate updates are also on the Microsoft web site
- Be wary of clicking on links from an email
- The best way to mitigate problems is to visit the Microsoft web site home and from there find what you need
Doug
