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My mother received an email today from “Social Security Administration” warning of “Important Changes to Access Your Social Security Account!”
It states that “soon you will no longer be able to sign into your online Social Security account using your username and password.” It goes on to say in the future, only a Login.gov or ID.me.account, and ends with a big button that says “Sign In to Your Account.”
I suspect this is bogus. Has anyone else received a similar email?
This is real, however I rarely if ever click on links in emails but go directly to the associated website directly to login and check for messages, in order to hopefully avoid nefarious actors.
Yep, that was the thought that prompted my original post. The form of the email seemed a little off to me. Just my suspicious nature.
I just used mysocialsecurity to see what happens when you login. Seems I am grandfathered because my account was established before a date in January 2021. When you login using your old credentials the site uses your email address to send you a 2FA message to confirm your identity, and then gives you the opportunity to transition to login.gov. At this point, you are not required to do so. I assume that at some future date it will be required. I have an ID.ME credential, and currently you can also use that as well as login.gov to access the site.
I also had a SSA account that was previously established in 2020 and this morning I created my login.gov authentication . I was prepared with a copy of my driver’s license and had taken a photo of myself but those were not requested by the automated registration process.
Login.gov and ID.ME are real. But that doesn’t mean the email she received and the big button is not an attempt to capture her credentials. I’ve never gotten such an email from SSA, OPM, nor IRS. I’ve received those notifications when I go their respective websites to login. I’d suggest not clicking the button in the email. Rather go directly to the http://www.ssa.gov site and go to their login page from there. The ssa.gov login page will present you with those options.