How to identify scams like "Website Suspension In Progress"
Written by Tomas Meskauskas on
What is "Website Suspension In Progress"?
We have inspected this email and found it to be a phishing letter composed to trick recipients into providing personal information on a fraudulent page. This phishing email is disguised as a warning from a web hosting service provider. Recipients should ignore emails of this type to avoid potential consequences.
More about the "Website Suspension In Progress" scam email
The phishing email is designed to falsely inform recipients about a supposed suspension of their website. It claims that the recipient's website is in the process of being suspended due to multiple complaints from clients. The email includes a fake link to review the complaints. Additionally, it requests the recipient to threat the email as urgent.
At the bottom, the email falsely states that it was scanned by Bitdefender to give it legitimacy. Clicking the links provided in this fraudulent email leads to a fake website requesting to enter a password to sign in. The entered information is sent to scammers who can exploit it for malicious purposes.
Scammers can use stolen login credentials to access various accounts (e.g., email, social media, financial, or other accounts). Depending on the accessed accounts, scammers may use them to search for sensitive information, send phishing emails, deliver malware, steal money, extract money from other individuals, and more.
Therefore, it is important to analyze suspicious emails before responding, opening files or links, or providing information on websites included in them. This allows individuals to prevent issues like monetary loss, identity theft, computer infections, and other consequences.
| Name | Website Suspension In Progress Email Scam |
| Threat Type | Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud |
| Fake Claim | Recipient's website will be suspended |
| Related Domain | qcard.co[.]il |
| Detection Names (qcard.co[.]il) | alphaMountain.ai (Phishing), CRDF (Malicious), CyRadar (Malicious), Fortinet (Phishing), Heimdal Security (Phishing), Full List Of Detections (VirusTotal) |
| Disguise | Notice from a web hosting 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. |
| 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
Phishing emails often masquerade as urgent messages from real people, legitimate companies, organizations, or other entities to deceive recipients into performing certain actions, such as providing personal information on questionable websites. Usually, scammers aim to obtain login credentials, social security numbers, ID card information, credit card details, or other infromation.
Cybercriminals also use deceptive emails to distribute malware. Examples of phishing emails are "Confirm That This Is Your Valid Email Address", "Someone Used Your Webmail Password", and "Dangerous Email Detection".
How do spam campaigns infect computers?
Threat actors spread malware through emails by attaching harmful files or including fraudulent links. Attachments can be MS Office documents, PDFs, executable files, ZIP files, ISO images, script files, and other types of files. These files can lead to malware infiltration upon opening them or performing other actions like enabling macros in malicious documents.
Links in these emails can lead to harmful websites that either trick users into downloading malware or start the download automatically.
How to avoid installation of malware?
Carefully review emails before clicking on any links or opening attachments, particularly if they are unexpected or from unfamiliar senders. Download files or programs from official websites or app stores. Avoid using unofficial sources like third-party downloaders and peer-to-peer networks or downloading pirated software and cracking tools.
Do not trust ads, buttons, and links on suspicious websites. Ensure that your software and operating system are regularly updated, and use a trusted security tool to protect your devices. 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 "Website Suspension In Progress" email letter:
Subject: Suspension Account Notice for ******** user(s)
Website suspension in Progress..
Hi ********,
This is to notify you on website ******** suspension, as we have received series of complains from clients about your website
Complains are stated on the below link.
hxxps://********/admin/checkl/complain/extranet/manage/?res_id=4531853163&hotel_id=301111&lang=el&from_confirmation_email=1?
Please kindly threat as Urgent
© ******** Support Team -
This email was scanned by Bitdefender
Fake website used in this scam:
Instant automatic malware removal:
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Quick menu:
- What is Website Suspension In Progress 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 often send the same email to thousands of people. Their scam emails are generic and not personalized. If you received such an email, it is possible that your email address was obtained from a data breach.
I have provided my personal information when tricked by this email, what should I do?
If you have provided any account credentials, make sure to update all your passwords as soon as possible to secure your accounts. If you are unable to access any of your accounts, reach out to customer support to report the incident.
I have downloaded and opened a malicious file attached to an email, is my computer infected?
The outcome of opening a malicious file depends on its type. For example, malicious executable files can start infecting your computer as soon as you open them. Malicious MS Office documents may not cause harm unless you enable macros.
I have read the email but did not open the attachment, is my computer infected?
Opening an email is not dangerous. However, malicious links and attachments, if opened, can trigger computer infections.
Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections that were present in email attachment?
Combo Cleaner can find and remove almost all known malware. However, since advanced malware can hide deeply within the system, performing a full system scan is essential to ensure elimination.
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