How to identify scams like "Accounting Has Shared Access"
Written by Tomas Meskauskas on
What is "Accounting Has Shared Access"?
We have inspected this email and found that it is a fraudulent letter masquerading as a notification regarding a September payment schedule assigned to the recipient. Scammers use this email to extract personal information from recipients. Such schemes are known as phishing attempts. Whoever receives this (or similar) email should ignore it.
More about the "Accounting Has Shared Access" scam email
This phishing email claims that accounting has shared a file named "Invoice Payment Schedule September 2024.xlsx" with the recipient. It includes buttons (links) labeled "Open in Excel" and "Download Document" and the date when the supposed document was last modified. Clicking either of the buttons/links leads to a phishing website.
This phishing site seems to contain a document (which is blurred) and requests to sign in to continue. The purpose of this page is to extract an email address and password (email account login credentials) from unsuspecting individuals. Any entered credentials are sent to scammers who can misuse them for malicious purposes.
With stolen credentials, scammers can access email (and possibly other) accounts and use them to send phishing emails or malware to contacts and search them for personal information. Also, scammers might use the compromised email accounts to reset passwords for other accounts linked to it. Additionally, they can sell the obtained information to third parties.
Therefore, it is important to be skeptical when receiving suspicious emails from unknown addresses to avoid identity theft, monetary loss, or other issues.
| Name | Accounting Has Shared Access Email Scam |
| Threat Type | Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud |
| Fake Claim | The recipient has received a document labeled payment Schedule September 2024.xlsx |
| Related Domain | printcare-lk[.]com |
| Detection Names (printcare-lk[.]com) | Fortinet (Spam), Full List Of Detections (VirusTotal) |
| Disguise | Letter from accounting department |
| 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. |
Similar scam emails in general
Emails of this type are often disguised as important, urgent letters from legitimate companies, organizations, other entities, or real people. Scammers use them to steal sensitive information. However, emails of this kind can also be used to deliver malware. Overall, the majority of phishing emails share similar traits.
Some examples of phishing emails are "OpenSea Offer Alert", "Exceeding Your Free Data Volume", and "Important Notice".
How do spam campaigns infect computers?
Threat actors use email to spread malware by attaching infected (malicious) files or including links that lead to malicious websites. When users interact with these files, e.g., open a malicious executable, enable macros in an infected document, or perform other actions, they inadvertently run malware on their systems.
Deceptive email links can direct users to sites designed to automatically download malware or trick users into downloading malware manually. Some more examples of files used to distribute malware include PDFs, compressed archives, ISO files, and JavaScript files.
How to avoid installation of malware?
Ensure that your operating system, software (including antivirus programs) are always up to date. Exercise caution with attachments and links, particularly if they come from unexpected or dubious emails. Download software and files exclusively from reputable sources and steer clear of pirated software, cracking tools, key generators, etc.
Do not trust advertisements, pop-ups, buttons, and similar content on unofficial websites, as they can often be misleading or harmful. 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 "Accounting Has Shared Access" email letter:
Subject: September Payment Schedule - Assigned to ********
Accounting has shared access to "Invoice payment Schedule September 2024.xlsx" With You ********.
payment Schedule September 2024.xlsx
Last modified 09/09/24Open in Excel
Download Document
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Phishing site used in this scam:
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Quick menu:
- What is Accounting Has Shared Access phishing email?
- 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 distribute their messages to a broad list of email addresses indiscriminately. These emails are typically generic and not tailored to specific individuals.
I have provided my personal information when tricked by this email, what should I do?
If you have shared your email account login credentials with scammers through the phishing site (link) included in this email, promptly change all passwords for any potentially affected accounts.
I have downloaded and opened a malicious file attached to an email, is my computer infected?
If you have downloaded and opened a malicious file, your computer may be infected. Executable files usually infect your system immediately upon being opened, while other types of files may need additional actions to cause damage. Thus, the probability of malware infiltration depends on the file type that was opened.
I have read the email but did not open the attachment, is my computer infected?
Simply opening an email is generally not harmful. However, clicking on links within the email or opening attached files can result in system infections.
Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections that were present in email attachment?
Combo Cleaner is effective at detecting and removing most malware infections. However, more sophisticated malware might embed itself deeply within your system, so performing a full system scan may be necessary to ensure elimination.
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