Suspected malicious e-mail claiming to come from InMotionHosting

Matt P.

5 years ago
updated 5 years ago
Answered

I received the following e-mail (minus the domain name), but as I have not received any e-mails or notices on AMP (and it's not referring to me by name), I am presuming this is a malicious e-mail. I thought you might want to be aware--otherwise, please let me know what I should be doing! Here's the e-mail:

** Please note: You are receiving this email because you are listed as one of the contacts for the domain name(s) listed below.**

Dear Customer,

Please read this important e-mail carefully.

Recently the following domain name(s) were registered, transferred, or had the contact information modified.

Domain Name	Days Until Suspension
[REDACTED]	4

ICANN requires all accredited registrars to verify the Registered Name Holder's contact information. You can read about ICANN's new policy at: http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/raa/approved-with-specs-27jun13-en.htm#whois-accuracy.

To complete this process, the Registered Name Holder must follow the instructions outlined in the previously sent emails. However, they have not yet responded to the verification emails. Failure to complete the verification process will lead to the suspension of the domain name(s).

Please ensure the Registered Name Holder completes this process in a timely fashion.

To resend the validation email to the registrant or if you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you for your attention.
InMotion Hosting Inc

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anonymous

5 years ago

Quote from Matt P.

Ok, so what do I do if I have not received any e-mails from them? There's no way to contact them, as far as I can tell. I have no spam filters, so there's nowhere for those e-mails to go otherwise. All I did was update my physical address, I really need to not have my domain (and therefore my e-mail) become inaccessible during grading of finals and submitting final grades!

Remember, there are many ways to strengthen email authentication to mitigate spam emails.

Reply Link

This has been resolved. I think there was a change in sender, and the spam-filter run by my organization didn't recognize it. I hadn't remembered to check there. Thank you!

5 years ago
Answered

Hello and thanks for getting in touch with us!

I checked with our Customer Service team and the text you posted does match the text of some reminder emails we sent out. If you recently registered a domain, or that domain renewed, it's likely that this is a legitimate reminder. No alerts would have shown up in AMP since AMP would only alert you to pending bills/renewals. Verification is a related, but separate, step.

Domain ownership needs to be verified after registration, renewal, or update-- this verification is emailed to whatever email address the domain is registered with. Sometimes there can be issues with this email address: if an older email is accidentally listed the verification email may be sent to the wrong place.

I'd start by checking your recent emails, including your spam folder, for the ICANN domain verification email.

That said, you're right to be suspicious. I myself have seen malicious phishing emails that seek to mimic domain verification emails. As I said above, since I cannot directly access your account information I cannot fully verify that this is a legitimate email-- only that the text you pasted comes from a legitimate email.

If you go looking for the ICANN email and find something suspicious, or if the ICANN email itself looks wrong in some way, please get in touch with our 24/7 Customer Service team. They can let you know which domain was recently renewed/updated, manually send a verification email so that you know you are receiving a legitimate one, and make sure all of your domain registration is up to date.