Avoid being scammed by "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" emails

What is the "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam email?

"MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" refers to a spam campaign, a large-scale operation during which thousands of deceptive emails are sent. These scam emails claim that recipients have won the "MOBI GRAND TELECOM" lottery, which is actually bogus.

This spam campaign operates as a phishing scam. I.e., it attempts to extract sensitive and personal information from the recipients of the emails. As well as being a serious privacy concern, the scheme may use additional tactics to abuse victims' trust.

Therefore, by trusting the "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam, recipients might experience a host of serious issues.

The "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam emails (subject/title "Money unclaimed" may vary) claims that recipients have won the international "MOBI GRAND TELECOM 2021" lottery. The purpose of this fake lotto is to supposedly function as poverty alleviation and COVID-19 relief effort, participants to which are selected randomly.

The messages inform recipients that they won nine million, five hundred thousand (in an unspecified currency) within the lottery's second category. Then the emails provide more information about the fraudulent lottery, such as the largest past jackpots and partnering games (i.e., scam mentions the names of legitimate lotteries, which are in no way associated with these messages).

Recipients are informed that they can claim the (nonexistent) winnings by establishing contact with the lottery representative/claims agent. Furthermore, the emails ask recipients to provide the following information: name and surname, full address, telephone number, email address, and (hoax) lottery winning ticket number.

As mentioned, phishing schemes aim to obtain victims' private information. The data can be used to further other scams and/or sold to third-parties (potentially, cyber criminals).

Additionally, schemes like "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" often ask victims to make certain monetary transactions. For example, users may be asked to pay a fee to have their winnings transferred to them. Needless to say, despite providing the requested information and/or making any payments, victims do not receive the promised prize.

In summary, trusting the "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam can lead to serious privacy issues, significant financial losses, and even identity theft.

Threat Summary:

Name	MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Emails claim recipients have won a large sum of money.
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.
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"Clustered E-mails Pending", "Webmail Email Scam", "INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)", "I Have To Share Bad News With You", and "Facebook Email Scam" are some examples of other spam campaigns.

The messages distributed through these operations are usually presented as "official", "urgent", "important", and similar, and may even be disguised as mail from genuine institutions, organizations, service providers, companies, and other entities. The deceptive emails are used for phishing, various other scams, and malware (e.g., trojan, ransomware, etc.) proliferation.

Due to the widespread nature of spam mail, you are strongly advised to exercise caution with incoming emails.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Typically, cyber criminals behind malspam campaigns send emails with a file attached to them or a download link to the malicious file. Their main goal is to trick recipients into opening/executing the rogue file, which then installs malicious software.

Some examples of files that cyber criminals send via email are Microsoft Office and PDF documents, executables (.exe), JavaScript, and archives (ZIP, RAR).

Note that malicious documents that are opened with Microsoft Office 2010 or newer versions install malicious software only if users enable macros commands (enable editing/content). These versions include "Protected View" mode, which does not allow opened malicious documents to install malware automatically. Older versions do not include this feature and install malicious software without asking permission.

How to avoid installation of malware

To avoid malware spread via spam mail, you are strongly advised against opening suspicious or irrelevant emails, especially those with any attachments or links present within them.

Additionally, use Microsoft Office versions released after 2010. Malicious programs also proliferate through untrusted download channels (e.g. unofficial and free file-hosting sites, Peer-to-Peer sharing networks and other third party downloaders), illegal software activation ("cracking") tools, and fake updaters.

Therefore, only download from official/verified sources and activate and update software with tools/functions provided by legitimate developers.

To ensure device integrity and user privacy, have a reputable anti-virus/anti-spyware suite installed and kept updated. Furthermore, use these programs to run regular system scans and to remove detected/potential 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 "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam email message:

Subject: Money unclaimed

CONGRATULATIONS!

 

MOBI GRAND INTERNATIONAL.

 

MOBI GRAND 20/21 LOTTERY TO ALLEVIATE POVERTY.

 

Enfield Business Centre 101 North Road
LOTTERY WINNING NOTIFICATION
Batch: 21/211/0333
Ref: BTL/311OXI/02

 

We happily announce to you the draw of the MOBI GRAND TELECOM 2021 lottery  online programs held recently to alleviate poverty and for covid  relief,  Your e-mail address attached, to ticket number: 694 75600541 721 with Serial number: 886/21 drew the lucky numbers:01-6-2-13-35-17, which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category. You are therefore, been approved to claim a total sum of 9500,000,00. in cash credited to file RPC/9080115322/44.

 

This year's Lottery Program Jackpot is the largest ever for MOBI GRAND  Lottery, The estimated 125 million jackpot would be the sixth-biggest in MOBI GRAND TELECOM history .The biggest was the 363 million jackpot that went to two winners in a May 2020 drawing of The Big Game, Mega Millions' predecessor. Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our World wide  booklet  and our representative  as  indicated in the electronic play coupon.  In view of this, your 9500,000.00  would  be released to you after proper protocols by our claim agent  has been followed by you. Our agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds to you as soon as you   make contact .

 

All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Website through computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 companies. To file for your claim, please contact  Mr Devon Lee. On:. Tel; +27614651364/ Fax; +27-(0) 86-5799-791 / Email:infodept1999@yandex.com.

 

Mr Edward Thompson ( British Gaming Commission)

 

--------------------------------

 

For an online transfer,  send the following:

 

1. Your full names.

 

2. Your ticket number:

 

3. Your residential , official address and country:

 

4. Telephone number and email address..

 

For cheque/bank atm card dispatch, send the following:
1.Your full names.     

 

2.Your ticket number.  

   

3. Address and Telephone no:

 

congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program. Thank you for being part of our promotional lottery program.
Sincerely,
Mr S.Russells
Mobi Grand  Zonal Coordinator .

Appearance of the "MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery" scam email (GIF):

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Quick menu:

• What is MOBI GRAND TELECOM Lottery 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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