Phishing email from Nominet?! Or is it for real?

[penders]

I received this dodgy-looking email supposedly from Nominet earlier today regarding passwords being reset in a few days. Thing is, it kinda looks genuine, but does ring too many alarm bells... what do you reckon?!

20100611_DodgyEmailFromNominet.gif

- Anything suggesting password reset has got to be dodgy, right?

- Any genuine email wouldn't say, "This email is not spam or a phishing attack." - would it?!

- No direct link to login page and links do appear to go to the correct domain ...nominet.org.uk - BUT links goto sub domain info.nominet.org.uk (when text states www.) and this sub domain redirects to http://www.smartfocus.com which seems to be some kind of email marketing company - which might be ok - but is just plain sloppy IMHO. (As you can see from the screenshot, Gmail has blocked a web bug from this address.)

- I don't recognise the account number stated in the email either.

- When I do actually log into Nominet I don't see any mention of password resets in the "Latest News".

[hobwebs]

This may be real as there is no link to click. But then on this page there's nothing mentioned about it...http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrars...lannedchanges/

[Malcolm]

You can check this with Nominet by phoning 01865 332244 or getting them to call you back: http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/contactme

[Drew]

Never seen a nominet email like that in my life.

I will contact them on Monday and ask, stinks of though

[Trev]

My instinct would be to say it might be real, but it sure looks like a phishing scam, so I'd be very wary and assume it was a scam. I'd certainly not click on any link in that e-mail without checking it out first just in case it was a fake.

If it is real it's p**s poor on the part of Nominet, phishers will repeat it later and people will assume if the first was real the subsequent one was real also.

[penders]

Originally Posted by Malcolm:
...or getting them to call you back: http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/contactme

20100612_NominetContactMeRequestForm.gif

[Trev]

I'd use the number on this page then. http://www.nic.uk/about/contact/

[scarymonkey]

I would go with it being real but would log in to your account by manually going to the site and then changing your password as a precaution.

[penders]

Update...

This does appear to have been a genuine email after all. I initially ignored it (didn't click any of the links in the email etc.), but today when I log in to Nominet (via my own link) I am prompted to change my password... and now all my accounts/domains appear to have been grouped together - so it does indeed appear to have been 'updated'.

Edit...

And... the Account ID quoted in the email is indeed one of the multitude of Account Nos. associated with my account! Although this wasn't obvious to me until today, once all the domains had been grouped together. It wasn't one of the two account numbers that I initially saw when logging into the account the other day.