Avoid being scammed by "Propuesta comercial" emails

What is the "Propuesta comercial" scam email?

"Propuesta comercial" is the title/subject of scam emails targeting Spanish-speaking users. The messages claim that recipients have been tracked for a considerable period time and, unless they pay a certain sum of money, they will experience unspecified, yet serious, problems.

Note that all information provided by "Propuesta comercial" emails is false and merely use scare tactics to trick recipients into paying the scammers.

According to a rough translation, "Propuesta comercial" scam emails state that the senders are a group of professionals who have been following the recipient for a while. Allegedly, the senders are aware of the recipient's browsing activity, habits, and exact address.

The recipient is alerted that within seven days, on a random day of the week, the senders will arrive at their home and cause "chaos". To prevent this from happening, the deceptive emails instruct recipients to pay a ransom of US$500 (USD) equivalent in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

The recipients are warned that unless they meet the ransom demands and contact the authorities, the demanded payment will only increase as will the "chaos". As mentioned, "Propuesta comercial" messages are part of a scam and none of the threats made by them are carried out. Therefore, these emails must simply be ignored.

Threat Summary:

Name	Propuesta comercial Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud.
Fake Claim	Emails claim recipients have been watched for a long time and, unless a ransom is paid, they will experience serious problems.
Ransom Amount	US$500 (USD) equivalent in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Cyber Criminal Cryptowallet Address	1CztB875CtMqexctx16JhTmnzb96PPG3B5 (Bitcoin).
Symptoms	Unauthorized online purchases, changed online account passwords, identity theft, illegal access of the computer.
Distribution methods	Deceptive emails, rogue online pop-up ads, search engine poisoning techniques, misspelled domains.
Damage	Loss of sensitive private information, monetary loss, identity theft.
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.

"Your device was not properly secured", "Server Notification", "2020 EU/COMMONWEALTH LOTTO" and "Suspicious Sign-In Attempt Prevented" are some examples of other deceptive emails. These messages are sent by the thousand, during large-scale operations called "spam campaigns".

This mail is typically disguised as "important", "official", "urgent" and similar. Scam emails can make various claims, requests, offers and demands. They are used to make ransom demands and also for phishing and malware (e.g. ransomware, trojan, etc.) proliferation.

The purpose of these deceptive messages is identical: to generate revenue to the scammers/cyber criminals behind them.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Systems are infected via dangerous files distributed through spam campaigns. The files can be attached to the emails and/or contain download links of infectious content. Malicious files can be in various formats such as archives (RAR, ZIP, etc.), executables (.exe, .run, etc.), Microsoft Office and PDF documents, JavaScript, and so on.

When these files are executed, run otherwise opened, the infection process/chain is initiated. Therefore, once a dangerous file is opened, malware download/installation is triggered. For example, Microsoft Office documents infect systems by executing malicious macro commands.

In MS Office versions released before 2010, macros are executed when a document is opened, however, later versions have "Protected View" mode, which prevents automatic execution of macro commands. In these versions, when a document is opened, users are asked to enable macros (i.e. to enable editing/content).

Therefore, infection processes are only started after macro commands are enabled manually.

How to avoid installation of malware

To avoid infecting systems with malware distributed via spam campaigns, you are strongly advised against opening suspicious and/or irrelevant emails. Any attachments or links found in dubious mail must not be opened, as they are sources of potential infections.

Additionally, you are advised to use Microsoft Office versions released after 2010, however, malicious content is proliferated using various techniques.

Popular distribution methods include untrusted download channels (e.g. unofficial and free file-hosting websites, Peer-to-Peer sharing networks and other third party downloaders), illegal activation ("cracking") tools and fake updaters.

Therefore, it is important to only download from official/verified sources, and activate and update programs with tools/functions provided by legitimate developers. To protect device integrity and user safety, it is crucial to have a reputable anti-virus/anti-spyware suite installed.

Furthermore, this software must be kept up to date, used to run regular system scans and to remove detected threats. If you have already opened malicious attachments, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the "Propuesta comercial" email message:

Subject: Propuesta comercial

 

¡Hola!
No se sorprenda de recibir esta carta.
Somos un grupo profesional

 

Te hemos estado siguiendo por mucho tiempo.
Ya conocemos todos sus datos personales, lo que hace en Internet, sus acciones, hábitos y la dirección completa de su estadía.

¡Estamos enviando esto para alertarlo! Nuestro grupo vendrá a su hogar y causará caos.
¡Durante los próximos 7 días con un tiempo desconocido para usted, actuaremos en uno de estos días!

 

Si no desea que esto suceda, debe pagar el rescate tanto como queramos.
Esto es 500 dólares estadounidenses en bitcoin.
Si no sabe cómo usar bitcoin, busque una guía en Google para enviar bitcoin y envíela a nuestra dirección.

 

Nuestra dirección de Bitcoin: 1CztB875CtMqexctx16JhTmnzb96PPG3B5

Nota:
* solo envía dinero y no pasará nada. Vivirás y te olvidarás de este incidente.
* si escribe una declaración a las autoridades, no cambiará nada. El caos vendrá a una escala aún mayor, y aún obtendremos más dinero de usted.

 

Reiteramos que el caos no sucederá si pagas el rescate.
Si no, solo espera hasta que ocurra el caos, ¡no seremos tímidos!

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 Propuesta Comercial 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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