Royal Bank Of Scotland Email Virus

What is Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus?

"Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" is a spam email campaign similar to Danske Bank Email Virus, Chase Bank Important Account Documents Email Virus, and many others. Cyber criminals use this campaign to proliferate a high-risk trojan called TrickBot.

Cyber criminals send thousands of emails by presenting them as payment notifications from Royal Bank of Scotland. These emails contain a message encouraging users to open attached documents for detailed information regarding the payment, however, this leads to infiltration of the TrickBot virus.

As mentioned above, cyber criminals send messages stating that users must pay many thousands of British Pounds. They are supposedly sent by an employee of the Royal Bank of Scotland, however, this bank is legitimate and has nothing to do with this spam campaign. Cyber criminals often hide behind names of popular companies or governmental agencies.

They do this to increasing the number of infections - users are much more likely to open files received from familiar names. TrickBot is an information-tracking trojan, since it hijacks browsers and modifies visited website content so that entered login information (usernames/passwords) are saved on a remote server controlled by cyber criminals.

These people might gain access to users' personal bank accounts, social networks, etc. and misuse them to generate revenue (via money transfers, online purchases, etc.). Therefore, the presence of an information-tracking such as TrickBot might lead to significant financial loss and even identity theft.

If you have recently opened attachments distributed using the "Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" campaign, there is a high probability that your computer is infected. Therefore, immediately scan it with a legitimate anti-virus/anti-spyware suite and eliminate all detected threats.

Threat Summary:

Name	Royal Bank Of Scotland spam
Threat Type	Trojan, Password stealing virus, Banking malware, Spyware
Symptoms	Trojans are designed to stealthily infiltrate victim's computer and remain silent thus no particular symptoms are clearly visible on an infected machine.
Distribution methods	Infected email attachments, malicious online advertisements, social engineering, software cracks.
Damage	Stolen banking information, passwords, identity theft, victim's computer added to a botnet.
Malware Removal (Windows)	To eliminate possible malware infections, scan your computer with legitimate antivirus software. Our security researchers recommend using Combo Cleaner. ▼ Download Combo Cleaner To use full-featured product, you have to purchase a license for Combo Cleaner. 7 days free trial available. Combo Cleaner is owned and operated by Rcs Lt, the parent company of PCRisk.com read more.

There are dozens of trojan-type viruses distributed using spam email campaigns including, for example, Adwind, FormBook, and Emotet. Their behavior might be different (some record information, others proliferate other viruses, etc.), however, all pose a significant threat to your privacy and computer safety.

How did Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus infect my computer?

As mentioned above, "Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" campaign proliferates a malicious Microsoft Office document that, once opened, asks victims to enable macro commands. In doing so, users inadvertently grant attachments permission to execute commands that download and install TrickBot onto the system.

This malware distribution method is simple and effective, however, it is not flawless. Be aware that attachments are only able to infect systems if opened with Microsoft Office tools - opening the .doc file using applications other than Microsoft Word will not result in malware download.

Furthermore, TrickBot can only operate on the Windows platform and users of other operating systems are safe.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Lack of knowledge and careless behavior are the main reasons for computer infections. Caution is the key to safety. Therefore, pay close attention when browsing the Internet. Carefully analyze each email attachment received. Irrelevant files and those received from suspicious email addresses should never be opened.

Furthermore, use a legitimate anti-virus/anti-spyware suite, since they detect and eliminate infectious files before they perform any malicious actions. In addition, more recent versions (2010 and above) of Microsoft Office open newly-downloaded documents in "Protected View" mode, thus preventing these files from downloading/installing malware.

Therefore, using older versions of MS Office is risky. If you have already opened a "Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" attachment, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the "Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" email message:

Subject: Advice of Service Charge


Advice of Service Charge for the period -

The Service Charge accrued on your account is £42,243.52.
This amount will be deducted from your account on -
Basis of Charge
The charge is calculated as a pro rata fee (at £14.081.17 per month)
Service Charge to be applied: -£42,243.52

We have identified a bank systems error, which has regrettably altered the quarterly service charge you currently pay. You might have recently received a Service Charge Advice indicating a substantially higher quarterly fee and we would like to offer our sincere apologies if this is the case.

This problem has been rectified and the amount indicated on the advice will not be debited to your bank account. I would like to stress that the problem is in no way your fault and is purely due to a technical problem within The Royal Bank of Scotland plc.

WE HAVE TAKEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO REVIEW SERVICE CHARGES LEVIED ON YOUR ACCOUNT AND ARE PLEASED TO ADVISE YOU THAT WE WILL, WITH THE EFFECT FROM 1ST OCT 2018, BE MARKING YOUR ACCOUNT EXEMPT OF SERVICE CHARGES IN THE FUTURE. FOR MORE DETAILS PLEASE CHECK ATTACHED DOCUMENT.

Once again please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused by this technical problem.

Sincerely,

Evangeline Mirk
Level II Senior Officer
Commercial Banking, Royal Bank of Scotland plc

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s)and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

Malicious attachment distributed via "Royal Bank of Scotland Email Virus" spam campaign:

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Quick menu:

• What is Royal Bank Of Scotland spam?
• Types of malicious emails.
• How to spot a malicious email?
• What to do if you fell for an email scam?

Types of malicious emails:

Phishing Emails

Most commonly, cybercriminals use deceptive emails to trick Internet users into giving away their sensitive private information, for example, login information for various online services, email accounts, or online banking information.

Such attacks are called phishing. In a phishing attack, cybercriminals usually send an email message with some popular service logo (for example, Microsoft, DHL, Amazon, Netflix), create urgency (wrong shipping address, expired password, etc.), and place a link which they hope their potential victims will click on.

After clicking the link presented in such email message, victims are redirected to a fake website that looks identical or extremely similar to the original one. Victims are then asked to enter their password, credit card details, or some other information that gets stolen by cybercriminals.

Emails with Malicious Attachments

Another popular attack vector is email spam with malicious attachments that infect users' computers with malware. Malicious attachments usually carry trojans that are capable of stealing passwords, banking information, and other sensitive information.

In such attacks, cybercriminals' main goal is to trick their potential victims into opening an infected email attachment. To achieve this goal, email messages usually talk about recently received invoices, faxes, or voice messages.

If a potential victim falls for the lure and opens the attachment, their computers get infected, and cybercriminals can collect a lot of sensitive information.

While it's a more complicated method to steal personal information (spam filters and antivirus programs usually detect such attempts), if successful, cybercriminals can get a much wider array of data and can collect information for a long period of time.

Sextortion Emails

This is a type of phishing. In this case, users receive an email claiming that a cybercriminal could access the webcam of the potential victim and has a video recording of one's masturbation.

To get rid of the video, victims are asked to pay a ransom (usually using Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency). Nevertheless, all of these claims are false - users who receive such emails should ignore and delete them.

How to spot a malicious email?

While cyber criminals try to make their lure emails look trustworthy, here are some things that you should look for when trying to spot a phishing email:

• Check the sender's ("from") email address: Hover your mouse over the "from" address and check if it's legitimate. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft, be sure to check if the email address is @microsoft.com and not something suspicious like @m1crosoft.com, @microsfot.com, @account-security-noreply.com, etc.
• Check for generic greetings: If the greeting in the email is "Dear user", "Dear @youremail.com", "Dear valued customer", this should raise suspiciousness. Most commonly, companies call you by your name. Lack of this information could signal a phishing attempt.
• Check the links in the email: Hover your mouse over the link presented in the email, if the link that appears seems suspicious, don't click it. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft and the link in the email shows that it will go to firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0... you shouldn't trust it. It's best not to click any links in the emails but to visit the company website that sent you the email in the first place.
• Don't blindly trust email attachments: Most commonly, legitimate companies will ask you to log in to their website and to view any documents there; if you received an email with an attachment, it's a good idea to scan it with an antivirus application. Infected email attachments are a common attack vector used by cybercriminals.

To minimise the risk of opening phishing and malicious emails we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows. 

Example of a spam email:

What to do if you fell for an email scam?

• If you clicked on a link in a phishing email and entered your password - be sure to change your password as soon as possible. Usually, cybercriminals collect stolen credentials and then sell them to other groups that use them for malicious purposes. If you change your password in a timely manner, there's a chance that criminals won't have enough time to do any damage.
• If you entered your credit card information - contact your bank as soon as possible and explain the situation. There's a good chance that you will need to cancel your compromised credit card and get a new one.
• If you see any signs of identity theft - you should immediately contact the Federal Trade Commission. This institution will collect information about your situation and create a personal recovery plan.
• If you opened a malicious attachment - your computer is probably infected, you should scan it with a reputable antivirus application. For this purpose, we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows.
• Help other Internet users - report phishing emails to Anti-Phishing Working Group, FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, National Fraud Information Center and U.S. Department of Justice.

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