In my emails this morning an offical looking messages saying there was reason to believe my email address (the correct one) was possibily under attack and to respond and verify it.

Is this genuine or not and how does one recognise such? Details below-

We think that someone else might have accessed the Microsoft account ds*****@hampshireman.plus.com. When this happens, we require you to verify your identity with a security challenge and then change your password the next time you sign in.
If someone else has access to your account, they have your password and might be trying to access your personal information or send junk email.
If you haven't already recovered your account, we can help you do it now.

I would not respond.
It sounds like a classic phishing attempt in which you are 'persuaded' to enter security details thus allowing the third party to collect your log in details.
The usual give away is that the email is addressed to your account but the greeting is 'Dear Customer.......' Rather than your actual name.
I don't think you should ever provide any of your personal information in response to an email request. Reputable companies will contact you by mail or phone.

Just my opinion though!

I think it is quite likely to be genuine... to find out, open a new browser window and go to microsoft.live.com (ie without clicking any links in the email) and try to sign in there. If you get the warning again, and a request to jump through some hoops, and change your password, it's (almost certainly) genuine. As long as the browser also has a mention of Microsoft Corporation and a padlock in the address bar you can be fairly sure you are not being phished...

If however, Microsoft makes no mention of it when you try to sign in, then it's probably fake, and you can be very pleased that you didn't fall for it and click any links in the email.

Incidentally, try to use very long passwords that have numbers, letters and special characters in them... something like Lastpass can help create them and remember them for you. I use Lastpass but other password managers are available!

Hope that helps

Andrew

Thanks for two sensible yet contradicting replies. I will work out my decision.

It didn't say Dear Customer, but mentions my email address with several **** included, so I am guessing its a fake

They have sent me a code to verify

My thought would be to log into your account and change your password without using any links in the email then delete the rmail

am assuming you use the programme on the computer to look at emails
if you click on sign out button in that programme, then press view profile you should be able to log into the online version, this needs a phone number to text a code, this is the security you can view your emails online,
I would say the email you have is fake

Thanks, I am totally confused especially with certainly the last reply but will wait and wee. The fact that they are stating that me email addy has several asteriks between my initial letters and before the @ strikes me as odd

The asterisks are not themselves indicative of anything other than the sender of the email is following the fashion for disguising/ concealing email addresses sent in emails which can all be intercepted... remember that anything you write in emails can be read by others, friend or foe. So the sender will say that rather than something to be suspicious of, they are actually helping to keep your privacy.

Like I said before, you should really log into your Microsoft account and check... someone really may have been trying to hack your account and you should change your password just in case. Just don't use any links sent to you.

Apparently this sort of thing can occur if you have sent out a load of emails recently for instance, and Microsoft think your account has been hacked by a spammer. So if you send out a newsletter to several people, that might have triggered the warning.

Hope that helps, without complicating things even more!

Andrew

Not sending out news letters etc, so that's not it. I will have a go at the log in as you say and see what happens.

Thanks