Do not trust the Secure your email scam

What is Secure your email scam?

Typically, cybercriminals behind phishing emails pretend to be legitimate companies, organizations, or other entities. Their main goal is to trick unsuspecting recipients into providing sensitive information, for example, credit card details, social security numbers, usernames, and passwords (or other login credentials).

It is common that phishing emails contain a website link designed to open a page where visitors are asked to enter personal information. In one way or another, it is strongly recommended to ignore emails of this type and not to click on links in them.

This email is disguised as a letter regarding email security (email encryption). It claims that the email account is not secured (messages in it are not end-to-end encrypted), and anyone outside a network can read all messages stored in it.

This phishing email encourages recipients to secure their email via the provided website ("SECURE EMAIL" button). That website is a fake sign-in page asking to provide email account login credentials (email address and password).

It is important to know that cybercriminals may use stolen email accounts to send spam or malspam (emails with malicious attachments or links), trick other users into making money transactions, check messages for other sensitive information.

Also, they may sell stolen email accounts to third parties (other cybercriminals) on the darkweb or try to use obtained login credentials to log into other accounts and steal them as well (this works when victims use the same login credentials for multiple accounts).

By having access to other accounts and depending on the type of those accounts, cybercriminals may misuse them to make fraudulent purchases, transactions, steal identities, and for other malicious purposes.

Users who believe that they may have fallen for a phishing scam like this one are strongly advised to change their passwords as soon as possible.

Threat Summary:

Name	Secure Your Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Messages in email are not encrypted (can be accessed by third parties)
Disguise	A letter from email service provided
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.

More examples of phishing emails are "Posteitaliane Email Scam", "Account Service Email Scam", and "AlWasail Industrial Company Email Scam". It is common that emails of this type urge recipients to take immediate action, for example, to change their password within a specified period of time.

Otherwise, their account will be blocked. It is important to mention that email can be used as a channel to deliver malware. A couple of examples of malspam campaigns used to trick users into infecting their computers with malicious software are "SALAMA Email Virus" and "Romanian Post Email Virus".

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

As a rule, emails that cybercriminals use to deliver malware are disguised as important, official letters from a legitimate entity and contain a link designed to open a download page for a malicious file or a malicious attachment.

The main purpose of such emails is to trick recipients into downloading and opening a file designed to start the installation of malicious software. In most cases, emails of this type are used to trick recipients into opening a malicious JavaScript file, Microsoft Office document, PDF document, executable file (e.g., .exe file), or archive file (like ZIP, RAR).

It is noteworthy that malicious documents opened with Microsoft Office 2010 or newer do not infect computers unless users enable content/editing (macros commands) - the aforementioned MS Office versions have the "Protected View" mode.

Although, malicious documents opened with older MS Office versions infect computers without asking to enable macros commands.

How to avoid installation of malware?

It is strongly advisable not to click on links or open attachments in irrelevant emails received from unknown senders. As a rule, emails of this kind are disguised as urgent letters from legitimate companies and used to deliver malware via included links or attached files.

Also, it is recommended not to open files downloaded from unofficial pages, third-party downloaders, Peer-to-Peer networks like torrent clients, eMule, and other channels. They (and programs) should be downloaded from official pages and via direct download links.

Furthermore, it is important to update and activate installed software properly. More precisely, that has to be achieved using implemented functions or tools from the official developers.

Third-party, unofficial activation and updating tools often are used by cybercriminals as tools to trick users into installing malicious software on their computers Moreover, it is illegal to use third-party tools to activate licensed software (or use pirated/'cracked') software.

Additionally, it is advisable to regularly scan the operating system for threats with reputable antivirus or anti-spyware suite and keep that software up to date. If you've already opened malicious attachments, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the Secure your email scam email letter:

Subject: Secure your email

Hello ********,

We noticed you haven't secured your email; ******** with our SSL encryption.
Your messages are not end-to-end encrypted, hence anyone outside this network can read your messages. We value your privacy and want to make sure you're secure online.
Please click the below button to secure your email.

Thank you, This is an auto generated message meant for ********

Update your  email preferences  to choose the types of emails you receive.

Unsubscribe from all future emails

Screenshot of the website used to steal email account login credentials:

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 Secure Your Email 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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