How to recognize phishing emails like Outlook Email Quota email scam?

What is Outlook Email Quota email scam?

Scammers use phishing emails to trick unsuspecting recipients into providing login credentials (like usernames, email addresses, passwords), credit card details, bank account numbers, or other personal information. Most phishing emails look like letters from legitimate companies. This email is disguised as a letter from the email service provider.

Outlook Email Quota email scam in detail

Scammers use this phishing email to extract email account login credentials (email addresses and passwords). Scammers attempt to trick recipients into believing that their email account is out of storage space and upgrading their mail quota via the provided "Upgrade Mailbox Quota" link.

That link opens a fake Yahoo login page asking to provide an email address and a password. Stolen credentials are likely to be used to send phishing emails, deliver malware, or sold to third parties. Also, scammers may try to use the provided login credentials to access other accounts (for example, social media, banking accounts).

Threat Summary:

Name	Outlook Email Quota Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Mailbox quota has exceeded its size
Disguise	Notification from email service provider
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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Phishing emails in general

Most scammers behind phishing emails are pretending to be legitimate companies, organizations, or other entities. They try to trick recipients into providing personal information. More examples of similar emails are "SF Express Email Scam", "Your Email Will Be Suspended Scam", and "Australia Post Email Scam". Emails also can be used to deliver malware.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

When cybercriminals use email to deliver malware, they seek to trick recipients into opening a malicious attachment or a website link. Their goal is to trick recipients into opening a malicious MS Office or PDF document, executable file, JavaScript file, archive file (its contents), or some other file designed to install malware.

It is important to mention that malicious documents opened with MS Office 2010 and newer cannot infect computers unless users enable macros commands (editing/content). Those MS Office versions have the "Protected View" mode that prevents malicious documents from installing malware. Older versions do not have this mode.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Attachments (and website links) in irrelevant emails sent from unknown, suspicious addresses should not be opened. Software (and files) should be downloaded from official, trustworthy websites and via direct links. Installed software has to be updated and activated with tools provided by the official developers.

A computer should be scanned for threats regularly. It is recommended to have a reputable antivirus or anti-spyware suite installed on a computer and keep it 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 Outlook Email Quota email scam:

Subject: Your Outlook Account is out of storage

Dear ********,
100% full     15 GB

You've used all of your Outlook Email Quota and you have some incoming messages that are placed on hold.
Kindly Upgrade your email mailbox account below to get more storage and access incoming messages, you may cease to receive incoming emails if no action is taken.

Upgrade Mailbox Quota

Outlook Administrator™ Team.
********
All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2021

Fake Yahoo login page used to steal login credentials:

Another example of Outlook Email Quota-themed spam email promoting a phishing site:

Text presented within:

Subject: Your Outlook Account is out of storage

 

Dear -
100% full     15 GB

You've used all of your Outlook Email Quota and you have some incoming messages that are placed on hold.
Kindly Clear storage or Upgrade your email mailbox account below to get more storage and access incoming messages, you may cease to receive incoming emails if no action is taken.

Clear Storage

Upgrade Mailbox Quota
 
Outlook Administrator Team.
-
Copyright © 2022 All Rights Reserved.

Screenshot of the phishing site promoted using this email variant:

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Quick menu:

• What is Outlook Email Quota 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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