Today I was the victim of a frankly ridiculous phishing attempt.  I’ve had some pretty bad and obvious ones before — “I am a Nigerian prince. Please give me your bank details…” and suchlike — but this one really takes the biscuit.

Here is the complete e-mail, copied and pasted from my inbox:

ATTENTION,

warwick has notice that your webmail account has been compromised by
spammers by gaining access to your webmail account and have been using it
for illegal internet activities. You are requested to provide your current
login credentials to enable us reset your webmail account password
immediately to aviod abuse of your account.

Current Username/ID:
Current Password:

You shall be contacted with a new password upon completion and you are
advised to provide the above information or your account will be
terminated by the abuse team.

Thank you for using warwick Webmail!
warwick Webmaster

……………………………………………………………..

A number of people are receiving an email, which purports to be from the
University,
requesting that the user confirms their email account details – username
and password.
This is a ‘phishing’ email and is an attempt to capture personal information.

ATTENTION,

warwick has notice that your webmail account has been compromised by
spammers by gaining access to your webmail account and have been using it
for illegal internet activities. You are requested to provide your current
login credentials to enable us reset your webmail account password
immediately to aviod abuse of your account.

Current Username/ID:
Current Password:

You shall be contacted with a new password upon completion and you are
advised to provide the above information or your account will be
terminated by the abuse team.

Thank you for using warwick Webmail!
warwick Webmaster

……………………………………………………………..

A number of people are receiving an email, which purports to be from the
University,
requesting that the user confirms their email account details – username
and password.
This is a ‘phishing’ email and is an attempt to capture personal information.

Emphasis mine. Repetition theirs.