I started getting emails yesterday asking me to change passwords on services I do not have accounts on - complete with helpful links - back-ended by malware and/or credential harvesting of course

Just a few minutes ago, I also received a legit email along the same lines, from a security organization.  Unfortunately, they also included links (OOPS), this time legit links, but that's still a big miss on their part.

It's worth a reminder to your user community, clients and even family if you support their machines (and bad computing habits) also. 

Helpful emails with links in them are in most cases NOT helpful.  Don't click that link!

If it's legitimate, and especially this week, by all means browse to the affected site and change your password.  That's always a good idea.  But following an email link to a password change page is a good way to get your credentials stolen, or a good way to pick up a nice "gift" of malware.

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Rob VandenBrink
Metafore