Recently, I have seen phishing emails purporting to come from Apple that completely copy its visuals and color scheme. The email looked completely legitimate.
There were 2 red flags, however:
1. Email address and url: This is the big one. If you look at the actual value of both the email address and url, you could see that the addresses were not from apple.com. Instead, they were for some weirdly addressed page. The lesson here is that, if you see an email you suspect might be phishing, don't click on the link text (for example: "click here"). Instead, right-click on the link, copy it, and paste it in a text editor or word processor. Then, you can see the actual link.
2. On the landing page, in addition to account and password, it asked for the social security number. Apple would never ask for this piece of information.
© 2019 Praveen Puri
Praveen Puri is the Strategic Simplicity® expert who has delivered over $400 million in value. He helps clients "weaponize" simplicity and bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Visit PuriConsulting.com