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In March 2021, fake email renewals for Norton Internet Security landed in inboxes and spam folders, and warned of devices infected with viruses. An example email had the subject line: your norton subscription has expired your device has been infected with viruses n°020953. A variation said the same thing with a different ending number: your norton subscription has expired your device has been infected with viruses n°915093. The email that appeared to be from Norton-Support2021 notified users that their supposed subscription to Norton Internet Security had expired. The headline claimed that recipients' devices had become infected with viruses. However, that seemingly important item didn't appear in the body of the email: This was not a legitimate email from Norton AntiVirus or Norton Internet Security. In an example email we reviewed, all links in the message pointed to a website hosted on a Brazilian domain. The unsubscribe link at the bottom of the message led to the scam as well. If readers receive a suspicious email that claims to be from Norton, desktop users can safely hover over links (but not click on them) in order to see where they lead. If they don't go to an official Norton website, such as norton.com, do not click the link. Also, the email address the message came from appeared to begin with Norton-Support2021@ and end with a long string of random letters. The email address did not end in @norton.com or anything similar. The company published a page to help keep Norton users safe from these kinds of renewal email virus scams. For example, it listed several email addresses they used to send official correspondence: norton@nortonlifelock.com, norton@secure.norton.com, ems@norton.com, lifelock@secure.norton.com, and information@mail.nortonstore.hk. It's true that Norton may send renewal offers. However, such offers will never arrive with completely lowercase subject lines. Further, there was no indication that Norton notifies customers your device has been infected with viruses in renewal email offers. The URLs in our emails point to the server at: https://secure.norton.com. Make sure that the URLs begin with https:// and has a norton.com or lifelock.com domain. Norton users who run the company's apps will potentially receive official emails from noreply@norton.com, no-reply@nortonlifelock.com, NortonAccount@norton.com, norton@nortonlifelock.com, and management@norton.com. Other email addresses are covered on the Norton Support page. We've covered concerns regarding computer viruses since the 1990s. For example, the purported virus in a Budweiser frogs screensaver first made the rounds in 1997. Thankfully, it was a hoax. Twenty-four years later, the Norton emails being received by readers were not a hoax. We recommend proceeding with caution when reviewing potentially harmful messages. Hovering over links to see where they lead is safe, but clicking on them may not be. In sum, fake renewal email offers appeared to be from Norton Internet Security and claimed that devices were infected with viruses. This was not official correspondence from the company. The scams should be avoided.
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