Wikipedia:Phishing emails

As of July 2010, many people received emails that looked similar to the following:

These emails are not from Wikipedia. The links they contain, despite their appearance, lead to third-party websites (see Link manipulation for an explanation of this technique). It appears that these mails constitute an attempt at phishing by unknown parties.

If you receive such a message, we advise you to delete it. Under no circumstances should you click the links in these emails, because by doing so you may open a website that may spread malware, and thereby harm your computer or access private information. Clicking the links will also inform the sender that your email account is active, which will make it a target for more spam and phishing attacks.

Please do not forward these messages to Wikipedia, because we are already aware of this problem and can't do anything about it.

These emails are impersonations on legitimate emails that Wikipedia's servers send out automatically when someone registers an email address with their new account. If you received such an email immediately after registering a Wikipedia account (or linking an email address with that account through your Wikipedia preferences), then it is legitimate; otherwise, delete it.