Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.

Virus Email - "Unpaid Electricity Bill - Customer Reference 57017378‏"
Virus Email - Unpaid Electricity Bill - Customer Reference 57017378‏

The fake email message below with the subject: "Unpaid electricity bill - Customer Reference 57017378‏‏," is being sent by cyber-criminals to millions of online users in an attempt to infect their computers with a virus. The fake email message contains a malicious attachment disguised as a document, which recipients of the fake email message are asked to open. But, opening the malicious attachment will only infect the recipients' computers with a virus, Trojan horse or some other malware.

The Malicious or Virus Email Message

Subject: Unpaid electricity bill - Customer Reference 57017378‏
Attachment: doc_scan_57017378.zip

Dear Client,

You have an outstanding debt of - 439,49 $ for period of 02/01 - 03/01. We kindly ask you to transfer the amount as soon as possible in order to avoid power cut.

Find you bill and payment information in the document attached.

Once the recipients’ computer have become infected, especially with a malware called a Trojan horse, cybercriminals behind the fake email message will be able to access and take control of the recipients’ computers remotely from anywhere around the world. The cybercriminals may spy on the owners of the infected computers, use their computers to commit cybercrimes, or steal their personal and financial information.

Now, if you have already opened this malicious attachment, please do a full scan of your computer with the antivirus software installed on it. If you don’t have antivirus software installed on your computer, please click here for a list of free antivirus software. And, remember never to open compressed file (Zip) or an attachment that has a name ending with “.zip”, unless you are expecting it from a trustworthy person.

Click here for a list of email attachments you should never open, regardless of where they came from.

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