How to recognize phishing emails like Request to close your email

What kind of scam is "Request to close your email"?

Our team has analyzed this email and found that it is disguised as a letter from the email service provider. It contains a hyperlink that opens a phishing website asking to provide login credentials. The purpose of this phishing email is to trick recipients into providing their email account passwords.

"Request to close your email" phishing email in detail

This email is presented as a letter regarding the email account deactivation request. It implies that a recipient has requested to close/deactivate the account and encourages to cancel the request if it has been made accidentally.

The email contains a "Cancel the request" hyperlink designed to open a phishing website asking to provide the password to sign in. Usually, scammers behind emails of this kind misuse obtained passwords to hijack online accounts, and (or) they sell those passwords on the darknet.

Threat Summary:

Name	Request To Close Your Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Recipient has requested to deacivate the email account
Disguise	Letter from the email service provider
Related Domain/strong>	panoramania.co[.]jp
Detection Names (panoramania.co[.]jp)	Avira (Phishing), CRDF (Malicious), ESET (Phishing), Emsisoft (Phishing), Sophos (Phishing), Full List Of Detections (VirusTotal)
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.

Similarities between phishing emails

Usually, phishing emails are disguised as official/important/urgent letters from banks, email service providers, or other legitimate entities. Scammers use them to extract credit card details, login credentials, and other sensitive information.

More examples of similar scams are "Your Account Needs Attention! Email Scam", "New Contract Documents Received Email Scam", "Payment Forecast Of The Attached Invoice Email Scam". It is important to know that cybercriminals can use emails to distribute malware.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

When emails are used to distribute malware, they contain links or attachments. Either way, the purpose of such emails is to trick recipients into executing malware (opening malicious files). Threat actors use MS Office, PDF, and other documents, executables, archives, JavaScript, and other files to deliver malware.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Do not open files and links in emails received from suspicious or unknown addresses. Especially when such emails are not relevant/do not concern you. Use official pages as sources for downloading any programs or files. Avoid using P2P networks, third-party downloaders, shady pages, etc.

Always use tools provided/designed by the official developers to update and activate the installed software. Keep the operating system and the software installed on a computer 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 "Request to close your email" email letter:

Subject: ******** Deactivation Request

Server messages

Dear users,  ********,

Our records indicate your recent request to close your email  ( ******** ). This requires us to deal with it as soon as possible

If the request is accidentally acquired and you have no knowledge of it, it is recommended that you cancel the request now

 
Cancel the request

 
However, if you do not cancel this request, your account will close soon and all email data will be permanently lost.

Greeting .
********  E-mail administrator

 
The message is automatically generated from the e-mail server security message and sent to the e-mail

Reply could not be  delivered.  
This e-mail message is ********,

Screenshot of the phishing website:

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 Request to close your email phishing scam?
• 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.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why did I receive this email?

This email is not personal. There probably are tens, hundreds, or even more recipients who have received the same email.

I have provided my personal information when tricked by this email, what should I do?

If you have provided your email address and password, change all passwords as soon as possible. Also, avoid using the same password for multiple accounts.

I have downloaded and opened a malicious file attached to an email, is my computer infected?

If the file was an executable, then most probably yes. In other cases, it may not be enough to open a malicious file. For example, malicious MS Office documents cannot infect computers until users enable macros commands in them.

I have read the email but did not open the attachment, is my computer infected?

No, opening an email by itself is harmless. Clicking links and opening files is the reason behind computer infections caused via email.

Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections that were present in email attachment?

Yes, Combo Cleaner can detect and eliminate almost all kinds of malware. It is important to scan a computer using a full scan to detect high-end malware. Malware of this kind usually hides deep in the operating system, and scanning a computer with a quick scan is not enough to detect it.

▼ Show Discussion