So I was checking my Proton Mail inbox, as I usually do, when I came across a hilarious email in my spam folder.
Your Mailbox storage is 99% full
You are currently using 4852.3 MB of 5000.00 MB available
Don't risk losing new incoming messages, Follow below to increase your email account storage.
I was very careful not to click on any links in the email.
I was not fooled even for a second. It was impossible for me to have run out of storage. You know why? Because I paid for a Proton Unlimited subscription a few months ago, and I have more than enough storage!
The fact that I got this email means someone got access to my email address, which makes it hard to narrow it down because I used to sign up for a LOT of services. I've started using Addy to create new aliases, but I really wish I had done that sooner, so I could see who sold me out.
Here's a lesson: always use an email alias, so that when/if this happens, you'll know who leaked your email address!
The fake progress bar isn't even 99% full, which is funny. Even funner: 4852.3 MB out of 5000 MB is only 97%
Not for my work colleagues. For them email is something for transferring files and re requesting the files when they cant find the original email.
I have a laptop with more than an unlimited SSD. It's not that expensive anymore.
I use my own domain and catch all. So signupatservice1 will be at signupatservice1@mydomain.ml and so on easy to check whats what
Maybe I'm desensitized because our group address is published in multiple places on the web, but that email is not even slightly noteworthy. This November we've already gotten 7 emails that said our mailbox was full or we needed to change its password.
To me this is just background noise of the Internet.
That's why I don't use Proton, but Startmail. Their email aliases system is perfect. Haven't got any trouble so far. Is this a common problem with Proton?
I feel like this is provider agnostic. If you signup to a bunch of different newsletters (or anything else really), at some point your email will get out there.
Proton has email aliasing via SimpleLogin which I have found to be really good.
Duckduckgo email offers kinda the same idea of anonymous emails for free. If you use their extension you can generate one-off subsidiary random accounts to be deleted later after use. You can do this on the spot, a single click while filling whatever registration form, really convenient.
I got a similar phishing mail as well though not for my primary email account. Most of them just redirect to a similar looking login UI and ask the user to enter password.
