THIS IS AN ONGOING SCAM
I have been unusually heavily targeted by this phishing attack that started about 3 months ago, not sure why. But at one point I was receiving as many as five variations on this every single day.
They were phishing for Apple ID, Applecare ID, and also really really wanted my GSX credentials. About 4 days after the attacks began, Apple added additional security to GSX. (which eventually was changed to two-factor authentication!) After the change to 2-factor, the gsx phishing mostly stopped. But the Apple ID attempts continue, and will likely not end anytime soon.
There are several easy rules that everyone in the world really needs to know about emails FROM vendors. The most important one of all:
If they don't address you by your name, THROW IT AWAY
That alone will identify over 99.9% of phishing emails.
additional safe practice:
1) it IS possible for an account to get locked due to excessive password attempts or other reasons, but you should NEVER CLICK A LINK in a "you need to reset your password" email. ALWAYS open up your web browser and enter the URL manually.
2) NEVER "verify your information". Vendors never need to verify anything important, especially passwords. (a vendor will never outright ASK you for your password other than at the login prompt, see #1) Anyone trying to get you to "verify" your information wants you to give it to them. I've played along with forms like this just to see how bold they would get, and every time I filled a page with bogus data they popped up a new page with even more egregious requests. We're talking social security numbers, credit cards (all of them), as the pages went on they clearly were going to see just how profoundly stupid I was going to be and just how much stuff I was willing to give them
3) Just because it LOOKS official, doesn't mean it IS official. Logos can be copied, pictures can be duplicated, it's very common for entire websites to be cloned completely. Don't trust it just because it looks right".
