Deloitte Email Virus

What is Deloitte Email Virus?

"Deloitte Email Virus" is another spam email campaign used to distribute the TrickBot trojan. It shares similarities with "Invoice Attached - FINAL NOTICE Email Virus", "Payroll Timetable Email Virus", "Company Complaint Email Virus", and many others. As usual, users receive deceptive emails encouraging them to open attached documents, however, this simply leads to infiltration of the TrickBot trojan.

This campaign's emails are presented in the form of financial notifications. Users are encouraged to check financial information in the attached document. This is a scam - opening the file results in infiltration of TrickBot. The email appears official, since is very common for cyber criminals to hide behind names of governmental institutions and popular companies.

They do this to increase the number of infections. Users are much more likely to open files when the sender is familiar. Despite the appearance of these emails, TrickBot is a high-risk trojan designed to record account credentials. This virus hijacks visited websites and modifies the content so that entered logins/passwords are saved to a remote server.

TrickBot's developers might gain access to users' bank, social network, and other personal accounts. These people aim to generate as much revenue as possible. Therefore, data tracking might lead to serious privacy issues and significant financial issues.

If you have already opened "Deloitte Email Virus" campaign's attachments, there is a high probability that your computer is infected with TrickBot. Therefore, scan the system with a reputable anti-virus/anti-spyware suite and eliminate all threats.

Threat Summary:

Name	Deloitte 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.

TrickBot shares many similarities with dozens of other trojans proliferated using spam email campaigns. The list of examples includes (but is not limited to) FormBook, Emotet, and Adwind. 

These trojans might perform various different actions (record information, proliferate other viruses, and so on), however, they all pose a direct threat to your privacy and computer safety. Eliminate trojans such as Deloitte Email Virus immediately.

How did Deloitte Email Virus infect my computer?

"Deloitte Email Virus" promotes a malicious Microsoft Office document (at time of research, an Excel sheet) that, once opened, asks victims to enable macro commands, otherwise the content will not be displayed properly. Once macros opened, the attachment immediately executes commands that download and install TrickBot into the system.

This malware distribution method is simple and effective, however, it has a major flaw. The rogue attachments are only able to infect the system if they are opened using the Microsoft Office suite.

For example, if the .doc file is opened using any application other than MS Word, the malware will not be downloaded. Furthermore, TrickBot works only on the Microsoft Office operating system and users of other platforms are safe.

How to avoid installation of malware?

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

Furthermore, keep installed software/operating system up-to-date and use a legitimate anti-virus/anti-spyware suite. We recommend that you avoid using old versions of MS Office suite, since newer versions (2010 and later) open newly-downloaded documents in "Protected View" mode - this prevents them from infecting the system.

If you have already opened a "Deloitte Email Virus" attachment, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the "Deloitte Email Virus" email message:

Subject: RE: Company records

Hi there,

In acordance with Article 5.1 of the Bylaws of the Association, a copy of the Audited financial statements for the year ended, 2017 is provided for your information.
Compare your records with financial statements attached, complete and fax it to our auditors.

Kind Regards,

Alison Walsh
Managing Director

Malicious attachment distributed via "Deloitte Email Virus" spam campaign:

Another variant of "Deloitte" spam campaign's email (also distributes TrickBot):

Screenshot of the email:

Text presented within this email:

Subject: RE: Tax Billing

Hi there, I have attached Tax Incentive billing for current period.

Pierre Laporte

Tax Senior | Business Tax Services

8621 – 201 Street Suite 600, Langley, British Columbia V2Y 0G9

Tel/Direct: (236) 631-3715

Pierre.Laporte@deloitte.com | www.deloitte.com

Please consider the environment before printing.

This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, by you is strictly prohibited.

Screenshot of the malicious MS Excel ("Tax_Billing.xls") attachment:

Instant automatic malware removal: Manual threat removal might be a lengthy and complicated process that requires advanced IT skills. Combo Cleaner is a professional automatic malware removal tool that is recommended to get rid of malware. Download it by clicking the button below:
▼ DOWNLOAD Combo Cleaner By downloading any software listed on this website you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. 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.

Quick menu:

• What is Deloitte 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.

▼ Show Discussion