Spam emails regarding Domain Abuse Notices

I have received domain abuse notice email from chloe-gray@icann-monitor.org.

The mail asks to download a Word Document which I believe contains a virus.

Dear Domain Owner,

Our system has detected that your domain: example.com is being used for spamming and spreading malware recently.

You can download the detailed abuse report of your domain along with date/time of incidents. Click Here

We have also provided detailed instruction on how to delist your domain from our blacklisting.

Please download the report immediately and take proper action within 24 hours otherwise your domain will be suspended permanently.

There is also possibility of legal action depend on severity and persistence of your abuse case.

Three Simple Steps:

1. Download your abuse report.


2. Check your domain abuse incidents along with date and time.


3. Take few simple steps for prevention and to avoid domain suspension.

Click Here to Download your Report

Please look into it and contact us.

I want to know if I have missed enabling/configuring something on the ISP side or did I leave some email address on my domain because of which these spammers have targeted me as well.

Are there ways to protect / configure my domain to avoid these emails?

Answer

This is spam at the least - at worst, it's a scam. Do not agree to send a read receipt. Do not download unnecessary content. Do not click links. Do not reply. Do not pass Go... etc.

As others have mentioned, protecting your contact details in whois information may help eliminate these emails; I'd also like to add some common signs of spam/scam emails:

• "Dear "
  Legitimate organisations will attempt to use your real name where they can - for example, by taking it from whois information, or by contacting your domain registrar to obtain your name and contact details.


• "Click Here"
  Legitimate (especially formal, like this) emails are drafted by people who are paid to come up with something better than "click this" for link text - "visit our website to retrieve the full report", perhaps.


• Bad grammar
  Legitimate emails are written by people who are paid to write good English - and then they're copy-checked before they ever get sent out. "There is also possibility", "depend on severity", and Unnecessary Capital Letters are generally not things that make it into professional communications.


• Legal threats
  People are more likely to get scared and do what the scammers want them to if they're threatened with things they don't understand, like legal proceedings - even if the threats aren't actionable.


• Unreasonable time limits
  If a legitimate organisation needs to time-limit you, it'll be on a scale of weeks, or multiple days at the very shortest. It's highly unusual to be given just 24 hours to perform some action - unless, of course, someone wants to scare you into taking action without thinking about it first.


• Unexpected attachment types
  Attachments such as official reports will usually come as PDFs, or a link to a legitimate webpage. Anything else - an RTF, a Word document, a HTML file, or an executable, should raise a question.

None of these are 100% perfect indicators of scams, but each should raise a small flag - and the presence of multiple should make you highly suspicious. If in doubt, verify the organisation is legitimate, look up a contact email address for them (not the address the email came from, usually), and use that to ask if the email is legitimate. If it is, fine - if it's not, you've done them a favour.