Amazon: Your action is required - phishing email

Amazon is the largest online mail order company in the Western world. But even this is not protected from cyber attacks. Currently, a phishing email is going around with the sole aim of getting your Amazon account credentials.

What to do if you receive such an email?

The number one law when using digital media is: never click on a link in an email whose origin you do not know. An email from Amazon can easily be spoofed, causing you a great deal of damage.

1. In most of these so-called phishing emails, you are prompted to log in via a button.
2. Not only are the emails replicated with very high precision, but so is the website you are directed to with the link.
3. This is usually a perfect copy of the original website, but runs under a domain that is slightly altered. The hackers hope you won't notice the difference between Amazon.com and "Amason.com".
4. However, you can easily bypass phishing emails. If you receive a request from a web service to take action on the site, then go to the site yourself via your browser and log in.
5. If the email really comes from the specified service, then you will usually be shown a message again here.