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Dear Google, Your Software Notifications Look Like Phishing Emails

posted on July 7, 2011


The very latest version of WordPress requires MySQL 5+ which is something Marketing Pilgrim was not running. No problemo, we simply contacted our host RackSpace and they scheduled the upgrade last night.

In the meantime, we received notification that our site was not using the latest version of WordPress, from Google nonetheless.

At first my phishing alarm bells went off louder than a hurricane siren and I deleted the email. Then, out of curiosity as to where the phisher was trying to send me, I went back to the email. Low and behold, the email is legit. Google announced such email notifictions back in 2009.

But, seriously, take a look at the actual email format:

Is it just me, or does that scream “phishing email, kill it, nuke it, blast it to smithereens”?

C’mon Google! While I appreciate that someone not on the ball would benefit from such notifications, I’m sure a lot of these get deleted as suspicious. How about some formatting? Heck, even a line-break would be nice here or there. :-P


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  • Phil

    I’ve had a similar email in the past and I did exactly the same.
    It was enough for me to go and check if the sites later that day, but I had already deleted the email as spam.

    Google have our details from our Google account’s. Surely they could at least put something in there to prove it’s a legitimate email?

    • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

      Good point Phil!

  • http://improvememory-reviewpros.com Brice

    Google sent THAT??? That is pathetic. Do you think Google doesn’t really want this to be read for some nefarious reason? They must know how suspicious and unofficial this looks.

  • http://screenandstream.com/ Glenn A

    Totally agree. I got two of these in the past day and immediately suspected they were spam. Delete.

  • http://cebuanddavao.com/ Nonoy

    I’m receiving the same emails. But I know it’s really from Google. Perhaps the emails are just delayed, receiving them after you’ve updated WP. MySQL 5+ is a database that can be found in your own server, the hosting. Thanks for the info. Cheers!:-)

  • http://stores.ebay.com/SeeWhatYouBuy-Books Catalunya

    Will watch out for it. Havent received one yet, but good to lower your guard for this one.

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