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Verizon and “Good” Security

November 9, 2007 - Filed under: security — Tags:

I use Verizon for phone and DSL and have for years. I have been very satisfied with them, but I recently got an email from them that bothers me.

Dear Verizon.com customer,
Thank you for taking the time to update security components of your verizon online account. Because security is a top priority at Verizon, we’ll need you to validate your email address at this time. To do this for your Online Account with User ID ######, you will need the following three digit code:###

Follow this link to input the above three digit code and your User ID and Password: Click Here (link removed)

I am almost certain that this email came from Verizon because I had logged into my account to pay my bill and they wanted to update my security information and then let me know that this email would be coming.

Even though I believe this email to be legitimate it bothers me for several reasons:

  • Even though I am 99.9% certain that this email came from Verizon there is still that 0.1%. I couldn’t find anywhere on their site where I could go to this page from a link, before or after I logged in.
  • They told me that this email would be coming, but it took several days to actually arrive.
  • Most every company that I deal with on the web tells me to never click on a link in an email asking for my personal information.
  • What happened to all of the previous communication from Verizon where they told me that they would NEVER ask for my password in an email? I guess they were just kidding.

It seems to me that even if this is a legitimate email, Verizon is making their security worse by actually inviting Phishing Scams from people copying this format.

3 Comments »

  1. I completely agree with your assessment. This is awful. I just received the same email. Did you ever receive any response from Verizon?

    I emailed customer service, we’ll see what happens. I have always loved Verizon’s service but had nothing but trouble with billing and customer service.

    Comment by Kevin — December 18, 2007 @ 10:41 am

  2. No reply from Verizon yet. I haven’t clicked on their link yet either.

    Comment by Jim — December 18, 2007 @ 7:45 pm

  3. […] years ago I wrote a post called Verizon and “Good” Security where I was very critical of their asking me to click on a link in their email to log in to their […]

    Pingback by Lillicotch.com » Good Security From Verizon, No Really — July 26, 2010 @ 8:00 am

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