The YouTube “Warning: Your inbox is full, message not accepted” Scam

Recently a scam spam has surfaced that claims that your YouTube inbox is full, and that you have to go clear it out (another version of the same scam says that “You have 2 unread personal message”). The email, claiming to be from “service@youtube.com”, has a subject of “Warning: Your inbox is full, message not accepted” (or, again, the “You have X unread personal message”), and advises you that “You can reply to this message by visiting your inbox.” The link to your “inbox” of course, which looks like “http://www.youtube.com/inbox?feature=mhsn”, actually goes to a malicious site – so far we’ve seen it go to http://lliamamor.com/breakfaster.html, http://motolover.50webs.com/sykes.html, http://mizban-ins.com/calculative.html, and http://217.172.226.2/~mmaja180/groundwork.html.

Here’s the general format of the scam email:

From: service@youtube.com
Subject: Warning: Your inbox is full, message not accepted
Date: June 1, 2011 5:36:21 PM MDT

help center | e-mail options | report spam

Warning: Your inbox is full, message not accepted

http://www.youtube.com/inbox?feature=mhsn

You can reply to this message by visiting your inbox.

© 2011 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

But if you hover over the link, you will see something like this:

Remember, as always, if you get a notice from an online service or website that you frequent, never click on the link in the email. Instead, always go directly to the website, and log in there, and if they really sent you that email, there will also be a notice in your account once you log in.