I just received a phishing email...

...and I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind people how to identify a phishing email.

The email was apparently from Zelle, a legitimate company. Zelle is a digital payment network which makes it easy to send and receive money. Zelle integrates with many financial institutions, like Citibank.

The email said my order was ready and my account had been charged $911.04.

The email looks pretty legitimate and there were a few things which were off.

1. The California area code was formatted in a strange manner +1(8)05 versus +1(805).
2. None of the links worked (they were empty/blank).
3. The email was from "do-not-reply" with an email address that was not associated with Zelle. The official Zelle domain is zellepay.com. The address in the email ended with .it (Italy).
4. I have not used Zelle for several months and there are no $911.04 transactions with my bank.

Overall, this was a very good phishing email. The presentation made it look at first glance as if it were legitimate.

Stay vigilant.