Avoid getting scammed by fake "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company" emails

What kind of email is "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)"?

Our inspection of the "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" email revealed that it is fake. This spam letter is presented as an invitation for vendors, contractors, suppliers, and other potential partners to receive an ITT (Invitation To Tender).

The goal of this email is likely to collect sensitive information and possibly deceive recipients into sending scammers money. It must be stressed that this fraudulent message is in no way associated with the actual Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

"Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" email scam overview

The spam email with the subject "ADNOC-UAE-197-1022 FOR CONTRACTORS/VENDORSADNOC-UAE-197-1022 FOR CONTRACTORS/VENDORS" (may vary) is presented as a letter from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

ADNOC's development and expansion projects are seeking vendors, contractors, and suppliers. Interested parties are requested to provide their information (details unspecified) to receive an Invitation To Tender (ITT) or a Request For Quotation (RFQ).

It must be reiterated that the information in this email is false, and this mail is not associated with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Data disclosed in such business ventures can be sensitive and may be used for a variety of malicious activities. Furthermore, during communication with scammers, victims may be deceived into revealing information of even greater sensitivity.

Targeted data may be acquired indirectly, such as through phishing websites or files. They can be disguised as sign-in pages or various forms. By extracting log-in credentials from victims, cyber criminals can steal the exposed accounts.

Emails are of particular interest to scammers, as they tend to include confidential data and might open an avenue for hijacking the accounts, services, and platforms registered through them.

Furthermore, by using a stolen email account and employing social engineering tactics, cyber criminals might be able to infect corporate networks with trojans, ransomware, and other malware. However, the origin of an infection may be more straightforward, with scammers simply sending victims infectious files.

To expand upon how unauthorized access can be abused, scammers can steal account owners' identities (e.g., emails, social networking, messengers, etc.) and request loans or donations from contacts, promote scams, and proliferate malware.

Compromised financial data or stolen finance-related accounts (e.g., online banking, money transferring, digital wallets, etc.) can be used to make fraudulent transactions or online purchases. As mentioned in the introduction, criminals may trick victims into transferring funds for legitimate-sounding reasons (e.g., various taxes, fees, etc.).

To summarize, by trusting an email like this fake "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" letter – users can experience system infections, serious privacy issues, financial losses, and identity theft.

If you have already disclosed your log-in credentials – change the passwords of all possibly exposed accounts and inform their official support. And if you have provided your personally identifiable or finance-related information to scammers – immediately contact the appropriate authorities.

Threat Summary:

Name	"Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" spam email
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Invite for potential business partners.
Disguise	Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)
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.

Spam campaigns in general

Spam campaigns are widely used in scam promotion and malware distribution. Various lures are employed to gain recipients' trust, such as business offers, purchases, invoices, refunds, account issues, undelivered messages, expired passwords, and so on.

While the widely held belief that spam emails are poorly written and riddled with errors is not untrue, it is not always the case. These letters can be competently crafted and even believably disguised as messages from legitimate corporations, companies, organizations, service providers, authorities, and other entities.

Due to how prevalent spam mail is and how well-crafted it can be – we highly recommend exercising caution with incoming emails, PMs/DMs, SMSes, and other messages.

"This Concerns Your Student Loan", "Email Resource Alert Triggered", "Rothschild Foundation email scam", "Price And Delivery Time", "VOIP Call Messaging Service", "I've Got Access To Your Smartphone", and "Compromise Of Your Digital Identity" are just some of our latest articles on spam campaigns.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Malware is proliferated through malicious files attached to or linked inside spam emails/messages. These files come in various formats, e.g., archives (RAR, ZIP, etc.), executables (.exe, .run, etc.), documents (Microsoft Office, Microsoft OneNote, PDF, etc.), JavaScript, and so on.

Once such a file is opened – the infection chain is triggered. However, some formats need extra interaction to jumpstart malware download/installation processes. For example, Microsoft Office files require users to enable macro commands (i.e., editing/content), while OneNote documents need them to click embedded links or files.

How to avoid installation of malware?

We highly recommend approaching incoming mail with care. Attachments or links present in suspicious/irrelevant emails or messages must not be opened, as they can be malicious.

However, malware is not spread exclusively via spam mail. Therefore, we advise vigilance when browsing since fake and dangerous online content typically appears legitimate and harmless.

Additionally, all downloads must be performed from official and verified sources. Another recommendation is to activate and update programs using genuine functions/tools, as illegal software activation ("cracking") tools and third-party updates can contain malware.

We must emphasize the importance of having a reputable anti-virus installed and kept up-to-date. Security programs must be used to run regular system scans and to remove threats and issues. 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 "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" spam email letter:

Subject: ADNOC-UAE-197-1022 FOR CONTRACTORS/VENDORSADNOC-UAE-197-1022 FOR CONTRACTORS/VENDORS

Dear Sir / Madam,

This invitation is coming from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in line with the ongoing projects of interest hence the extension of the Invitation to you and your esteemed organization.

This notification of invitation is In line with the development and expansion of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

 

We notify your organization about the ongoing enrollment of Vendors, contractors, suppliers, and intending partners as well as the Validation of the existing ones.

This enrollment is open for 2023/2024 projects and will be closing in 10 days.

Therefore, intending Contractors/Vendors and existing vendors who are interested in receiving the Invitation to Tender (ITT) or Request for Quotation(RFQ) are to provide us with sufficient information to make an initial assessment of their competence to handle any of the projects as shall be listed.

These projects are open to both local and international organizations.

Please confirm your interest in receiving the EOI and Vendor registration questionnaires for onward enrollment

We appreciate your interest in this invitation, and we look forward to your early response.

________________________

 

Kind Regards,

Omar Bin Al Qassim Mamoud
Group Procurement Vendor Coordinator
ADNOC - Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, U.A.E
Contracts Shared Services Center
Email: vendor@adnocssuplier-ae.com

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Quick menu:

• What is "Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)" spam 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?

Spam emails are not personal, even if they include information relevant to the recipients. This mail is sent out in large-scale campaigns – hence, thousands of users receive identical or incredibly similar emails.

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

If you have provided your log-in credentials – immediately change the passwords of all potentially compromised accounts and inform their official support. However, if you've disclosed other private information (e.g., ID card details, passport photos/scans, credit card numbers, etc.) – contact relevant authorities without delay.

I have read a spam email but didn't open the attachment, is my computer infected?

Merely reading an email is harmless; systems are infected when malicious attachments or links are opened/clicked.

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

If the opened file was an executable (.exe, .run, etc.) – most likely, yes – your device was infected. However, you might have avoided this if it was a document (.doc, .xls, .pdf, .one, etc.). These formats may require additional actions (e.g., enabling macros, clicking embedded content, etc.) to initiate malware download/installation.

Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections present in email attachments?

Yes, Combo Cleaner can scan systems and eliminate all kinds of threats. It is capable of detecting and removing most of the known malware infections. Note that performing a complete system scan is paramount since sophisticated malicious programs usually hide deep within systems.

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