Do not trust fake "Capital One" emails concerning a disputed payment

What kind of email is "Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account"?

Our inspection of this "Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" email revealed that it is fake. This spam message notifies the recipient about a disputed transaction. The purpose of this phishing email is to deceive recipients into visiting a fraudulent Capital One sign-in page.

"Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" email scam overview

The spam email with the subject "Dispute processed: Review Details For This Transaction" (may vary) states that a disputed payment was posted to the recipient's account. The recipient can review the details of the $520.35 disputed transaction by pressing the button in this message.

It must be emphasized that the information in this email is false, and this mail is not associated with the actual Capital One Financial Corporation.

At the time of research, the website promoted by this spam campaign was down. It is worth mentioning that this could be rectified in possible future releases of this campaign (i.e., emails will redirect to a functional website).

Based on the lure used by this mail, it is likely that the endorsed webpage was a phishing website disguised as the Capital One sign-in page. Hence, by attempting to sign in through such a webpage, users expose their Capital One accounts to scammers. Finance-related accounts can be used to make fraudulent transactions and online purchases.

To summarize, victims of scam mail like "Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" can experience severe privacy issues, financial losses, and identity theft.

If you have already entered your log-in credentials into a phishing site – immediately change the passwords of all possibly compromised accounts and inform their official support. If the exposed information was particularly sensitive, it might also be necessary to contact the appropriate authorities.

Threat Summary:

Name	"Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" phishing email
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Disputed payment of $520.35 has been posted to the recipient's account.
Disguise	Capital One
Related Domains	viewpnre[.]com
Detection Names (viewpnre[.]com)	Fortinet (Phishing), G-Data (Phishing), Sophos (Phishing), Full List Of Detections (VirusTotal)
Serving IP Address (viewpnre[.]com)	15.197.240.20
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.

Phishing spam campaign examples

We have investigated numerous spam emails; "World Covid-19 Support Program (W.C.S.P)", "Employee Benefit/Payroll Update", "Your Shipment With DHL Express Is On Its Way", "Employee Payroll Portal", and "Removal Request Approved And Initiated" are just some of our latest articles on ones used for phishing.

Commonly targeted information includes log-in credentials, personally identifiable details, and finance-related information. However, other scams are promoted through spam mail as well. Additionally, deceptive emails are used to distribute malware.

While the widely held belief that spam messages are poorly written and riddled with spelling/grammatical errors is not untrue, it is not always the case. These emails can be competently put together and even convincingly disguised as messages from legitimate companies, organizations, institutions, service providers, authorities, and other entities.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Spam campaigns proliferate malware by distributing infectious files as attachments or download links. These files can be documents (Microsoft Office, Microsoft OneNote, PDF, etc.), archives (RAR, ZIP, etc.), executables (.exe, .run, etc.), JavaScript, and so on.

Merely opening a malicious file can be enough to trigger malware download/installation. However, some formats require additional user interaction to jumpstart infection processes. For example, Microsoft Office files need users to enable macro commands (i.e., editing/content), while OneNote documents require them to click embedded links or files.

How to avoid installation of malware?

We strongly recommend approaching incoming emails, DMs/PMs, SMSes, and other messages with care. Attachments or links found in suspect mail must not be opened, as they can be harmful or infectious.

It must be mentioned that malware is distributed using various methods. Therefore, we advise vigilance when browsing since fraudulent and dangerous online content usually appears genuine and harmless.

Furthermore, all downloads must be made from official and verified channels. Another recommendation is to activate and update software using legitimate functions/tools, as illegal activation tools ("cracks") and third-party updates can contain malware.

We must emphasize the importance of having a reputable anti-virus installed and kept updated. Security programs must be used to run regular system scans and to remove detected 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 "Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" spam email letter:

Subject: Dispute processed: Review Details For This Transaction

Capital One
Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account

Dear -,

See details of your disputed transaction in the amount of $520.35, follow the prompt below to view details.

DISPUTE DETAILS

Thank you for being a Capital One customer.

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Quick menu:

• What is "Capital One - Disputed Payment Posted To Your Account" 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?

Spam emails are not personal, even if they include details relevant to the recipients. This mail is distributed in massive operations – therefore, thousands of users receive identical or incredibly similar messages.

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

If you have provided your log-in credentials – change the passwords of all potentially compromised accounts and inform their official support. And if you have disclosed other private information (e.g., ID card details, 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?

Reading an email poses no infection threat; 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?

File formats can impact infection success rates. Once opened, executables (.exe, .run, etc.) cause infections almost without fail. However, some formats – like documents (.doc, .xls, .one, .pdf, etc.) – might need extra interaction to initiate malware download/installation. Hence, the infection is only triggered after macro commands are enabled, embedded content is clicked, or other actions are performed.

Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections present in email attachments?

Combo Cleaner is designed to scan devices and eliminate all kinds of threats. It can detect and remove nearly all known malware infections. Remember that performing a full system scan is essential since sophisticated malicious software typically hides deep within systems.

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