Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus
Written by Tomas Meskauskas on (updated)
What is "Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus"?
"Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus" is a spam campaign, a scam that cyber criminals use to distribute the TrickBot malicious program.
They attempt to trick people into opening the attachment by presenting the email as legitimate. If opened, the attachment causes download and installation of a TrickBot trojan-type infection. To avoid serious problems, we strongly recommend that you ignore this email and do not open the attachment.
For the most part, the "Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus" email is in French, and is supposedly from the Royal Bank of Canada (the largest bank in Canada). In fact, this financial services company has nothing to do with this scam. In many cases, scammers/cyber criminals use popular company names to lend credibility to their emails/spam campaigns.
This email message regards an unfinished application that can be viewed using the attached Excel document. In fact, this attachment is a malicious document designed to infect computers with the TrickBot trojan-type program. This is a malicious program designed to steal various personal, private information (data) and use it to generate revenue.
This program gathers logins, passwords of various accounts (such as cryptocurrency wallets, bank accounts, and so on). Using the data, cyber criminals might cause financial loss and other problems, depending on the program version. It might be capable of locking the computer screen, hijacking installed apps, gathering browsing-related data and system information, etc.
Browsing safety/privacy problems might also be caused. Therefore, never open the attachment presented in the "Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus" email.
Name | Royal Bank Of Canada 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. |
There are many other spam campaigns used to infect computers with malicious programs such as "Unicredit Bank Email Virus", "I Made Transfer Into Your Bank Account", or "Verizon Email Virus".
Most of these spam campaigns share the same purpose: to cause computer infections with trojan-type or other malicious programs such as TrickBot, Adwind, Pony, FormBook, and so on. The purpose of these emails/computer infections is to generate revenue for the cyber criminals who distribute them.
How did "Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus" infect my computer?
The attachment included in the "Royal Bank Of Canada Email Virus" email can install the TrickBot malicious program only if it is first opened. If opened with Microsoft Office 2010 (or later), the Excel document will demand permission to enable macro commands (enable content).
This is called "Protected View" mode, which prevent infected MS documents from installing viruses. If permission to enable these commands is given, however, the malicious document will start the download and installation process of TrickBot.
How to avoid installation of malware?
Be careful with emails received from unknown, suspicious addresses, especially if these emails contain web links or attachments. Bear in mind that many scammers (cyber criminals) present them as legitimate using well-known company names.
Download software using official websites/channels and not third party downloaders, Peer-to-Peer networks such as torrents, eMule, unofficial websites, etc. These sources are often used by cyber criminals - they present malicious files and proliferate computer infections.
Software cracking tools should not be used, since, rather than activating software (illegally), they install malicious programs. Update installed software using implemented tools or functions provided by official software developers. We also recommend that you have anti-virus or anti-spyware software installed (reputable software) and keep it enabled at all times.
Use of newer MS Office versions (2010 and later) can also prevent malicious documents from installing infections. If you have already opened "Royal Bank Of Canada 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 Canada Email Virus" email message:
Subject: RE: Instructions de transfert
Bonjour,
Afin de compléter votre demande, nous avons besoin de vous pour compléter la lettre ci-jointe avec instructions ou transférer les fonds et signataires autorisés.
Vous pouvez mettre le compte à zéro et nous faire parvenir un courriel avec deux des signataires en copie conforme.
Merci et Bonne Journée
Si tu as besoin de plus d’informations, n’hésite pas a m’appeler.
Céline Henderson
Rosa Cho, Céline Henderson, Sophie Savoie & Josiane Wong Kee Song │ Conseiller service commerciaux, équipe service à la clientèle commerciale│ RBC Banque Royale │ Banque Royale du Canada │1 Place Ville Marie – 2e étage, aile Ouest, Montréal QC, H3C 3A9│Tél: 1-877-421-4865 (Opt 1-1-3 ) │
If you received this email in error, please advise the sender (by return email or otherwise) immediately. You have consented to receive the attached electronically at the above-noted email address; please retain a copy of this confirmation for future reference. You may unsubscribe from promotional emails.
Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez en aviser l'expéditeur immédiatement, par retour de courriel ou par un autre moyen. Vous avez accepté de recevoir le(s) document(s) ci-joint(s) par voie électronique à l'adresse courriel indiquée ci-dessus; veuillez conserver une copie de cette confirmation pour les fins de reference future. Vous pouvez vous désinscrire de la liste d’envoi de courriels promotionnels.
Malicious Microsoft Excel document attached to this email (users who enable macro commands will have their computers infected with the TrickBot trojan):
Instant automatic malware removal:
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Quick menu:
- What is Royal Bank Of Canada 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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