Microsoft Takes Schrock Innovations on a Phishing Expedition

Yesterday I was looking through the statistics form February on the Schrock Innovations website when suddenly my Internet Explorer browser popped up an alert that the site I was viewing could possibly be a phishing website.

Phishing (pronounced ‘fishing’) websites look like a legitimate website, but in fact attempt to steal personal information from you. For example, a phishing website might look like your bank’s website, but when you try to log in using your online banking password you inadvertently give your credentials to an online crook.

Obviously, the Schrock Innovations statistics page is not trying to steal and information from anyone, so this was a false detection! I had never seen a false detection before in Internet Explorer’s Phishing detection engine, so I was naturally curious why Microsoft thought my web page was a phishing website.

As I read Microsoft’s report, I found a link to a form allowed me to contest their designation for the detected web page. I filled out the form and clicked submit. I figured I would never hear back, so I just continued to go about my business. I was wrong.

Less than 40 minutes later, I received the following email response from Microsoft:

We have reviewed the information you provided regarding this website and removed the incorrect designation. We thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Thank you,
Microsoft Phishing Filter Support

Needless to say I was impressed with the turn around time from Microsoft’s support staff. I was never able to find out why my statistics page was detected as a Phishing website, but at least I won’t see that message again.