You open your inbox and see an alert claiming someone just logged into your X account from an unfamiliar device. Your first instinct is to click through and lock things down immediately. That instinct is exactly what a new phishing scam is counting on.
As reported by The Guardian, a wave of fake X security emails is currently doing the rounds. They claim a new device has logged into your account and urge you to click a link to reset your password or review app access.
The advice itself sounds legitimate because it mirrors what X actually tells users to do. The catch is that none of the links lead to X. They lead to a page built to steal your password or trick you into granting a scammer’s app full access to your account.
What makes the fake email so convincing?
The scam copies X’s branding, colors, and formatting almost perfectly, right down to clean grammar and spelling. Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at ESET, says the real giveaways are easy to miss unless you know where to look.
According to him, the biggest tells are the sender’s email address and where the links actually take you once clicked. X’s help center page mentions that it only emails from @X.com or @e.X.com addresses and will never ask for your password through email, DM, or reply.
What should you do if you get one?
Don’t panic and don’t click anything in the email. Instead, open the X app directly. If there’s a genuine security issue, it will show up there too. Also, always make sure to verify the sender’s email. If the email is not from the addresses X mentions on its support page, discard that as a scam.
If you already entered your password or a one-time code on a site you didn’t verify, change your password immediately and turn on two-factor authentication right away. It will ensure that scammers don’t have your current password and cannot take control of your X account.
