…and it’s convincing.

I mean, I hate to sound almost impressed by some cruddy email scammer, but as far as “click here to log in and verify your account” phishing attempts go, this one is devoid of broken English, and uses information taken from a recent data breach at eBay to ratchet up the realism by using the target’s actual name. If there is a spectrum of phishing attacks that ranges from “laughable” to “frighteningly realistic,” this one falls much closer to the latter than the former.

The Consumerist blog has a full article that discusses it in greater detail. I strongly suggest you read it. In the example they use, the recipient only used that email address for eBay and PayPal, which added to the realism. It’s a good idea to have separate email addresses used only for online transactions because it helps weed out phishing (if you get a message on your OTHER account that supposedly comes from PayPal, you know it’s fake right away). However, as soon as there is a data breach, your specific-purpose email address can be targeted as well. My guess is that this guy is going to start seeing a ton of spam hitting his eBay/PayPal-only email, and he’ll have to abandon it for a new one.

At its core, this phishing attack was just another “click here to verify” attempt, but by using data from a breach, its success rate is bound to be higher than usual. It’s why you can never stop paying close attention to everything you click on.