How to recognize scams like "Giving While Living"

What is "Giving While Living"?

We have inspected this email and determined that it is a scam. The purpose of this scam email is to extract personal information and (or) money from recipients. Whoever receives such emails should ignore them and never provide any information or take other actions.

More about the "Giving While Living" scam email

This scam email claims to offer a $1,500,000 donation from MacKenzie Scott, an ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It suggests that the recipient was randomly selected to receive this large sum and asks them to verify their email address to facilitate the wire transfer.

The email also includes a link to the MacKenzie Scott Wikipedia page. It is designed to trick the recipient into providing personal information (e.g., credit card details, name, surname) or paying fake administration or other fees. The extracted information could be used for identity theft, financial fraud, or other malicious purposes.

Thus, it is important to ignore such emails to avoid financial loss, identity theft, or other issues. It is strongly recommended to always verify the legitimacy of any unsolicited offers and report suspicious emails to an email provider to help protect yourself and others from scams.

Threat Summary:

Name	Giving While Living Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	the recipient has been chosen to receive $1,500,000
Disguise	Letter from MacKenzie Scott
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.

Similar scam emails in general

Emails of this type often promise large sums of money or other enticing offers to trick recipients into providing personal information or sending money. These emails usually impersonate well-known people, organizations, or other entities. It is important to mention that such emails can contain links or files and be used to deliver malware.

Some examples of scam emails are "Yahoo Canada Lottery", "Foreign Beneficiary", and "BMW Promotional Program".

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Emails designed to distribute malware contain malicious attachments or links. Files attached to such emails can be malicious MS Office documents, PDFs, archives, executables, JavaScript files, or other files. Malware can infiltrate systems after running malicious executables, enabling macros commands in infected MS Office documents, or taking other actions.

Links in fraudulent emails can take users to web pages designed to trick them into downloading and opening malicous files (or installing malicious programs). Also, these links can lead to pages designed to automatically download malware on computers.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Download software (and files) from reliable sources, such as official websites or app stores. Do not install pirated software or use cracking (or similar) tools to bypass software activation. Regularly update installed programs and the operating system. Avoid opening files and links in suspicious emails (e.g., irrelevant emails from unknown addresses).

Additionally, scan your computer for malware and other threats regularly. Use a reputable security tool for protection. 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 "Giving While Living" email letter:

Subject: US$1,500,000.00USD Donation for you and your family!!

I am MacKenzie Scott Tuttle, an American novelist and philanthropist, driven by the belief in the power of "giving while living."
I am dedicated to using my resources to positively impact lives around the world. Recently, I have chosen to quietly contribute
$1,500,000 to randomly selected individuals globally.

If you are receiving this message, consider yourself fortunate. Your email was selected through a random online search.
Please contact me as soon as possible to verify the accuracy of your email address..

To facilitate the process, kindly provide your full information for the wire transfer. Your privacy and security are of utmost importance.

For more about my endeavors, please visit my page on Wikipedia: https:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKenzie_Bezos
MacKenzie Bezos Wikipedia Page

Best regards,
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle

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Quick menu:

• What is Giving While Living 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?

Scammers send identical emails to thousands of recipients, hoping that some will fall for the scam. These spam emails are never personalized (e.g., they do not contain full names of recipients).

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

If you have shared any account credentials, change all your passwords immediately. Contact the relevant authorities if you have disclosed other personal information, such as credit card details or ID card information.

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

If the malicious file was an executable, it likely caused an infection. However, if it was a document (like a .pdf or .doc), you might have avoided malware infiltration, as simply opening such files does not always lead to malware entering the system.

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

It is safe to open emails without clicking links or opening files.

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

Yes, Combo Cleaner can detect and remove nearly all known malware. However, sophisticated malware often hides deeply within the system, so it is essential to run a full system to ensure detection and removal.

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