Virus attack on PayPal users: Beware of this account notification

Dear customer

Report ID: 2Y745BIFLAIZTS0G3RCO

Issue date: Saturday March 28, 2020.

We suspect that someone is using your account without your knowledge. We have limited it for your protection and have identified some changes in your account that require further review. During this time, you may not be able to access certain account activities.

Please see the PDF file to manage your PayPal account!

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Your PayPal account was allegedly blocked due to unauthorized access and you should now open a PDF file to manage your account. How this should be done is more than questionable. Under no circumstances should you open the PDF. Probably a Trojan, Ramsonware or other malware will be smuggled onto your computer. Deletes the mail immediately. If you have opened the PDF, we recommend disconnecting your computer from the Internet and carrying out a thorough virus scan. By temporarily disconnecting from the Internet, you prevent attackers from reloading malware or malware components from the network.

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We also advise all PayPal users to remain vigilant over the next few days, readers have already forwarded us variants of the mail, some of which have a different sender. Below we explain how you generally recognize phishing and spam mails.

Simple signs: How to recognize every phishing email

A first indication that you have received a phishing email: As part of the email, you will be asked to confirm personal data or to enter it on a website. This Under no circumstances should you comply with the demand. In addition, criminals often use the official logos of the companies they copy in their emails, but not official sender addresses.

If the sender is suspicious, you should read the email twice. Often you will also find spelling mistakes or inconsistencies in the German grammar. The attackers usually do not write their own mails, but instead use automatically generated messages or translate known mails with you Translation program. But why all the effort?

What do criminals achieve with phishing attacks?

Phishing is used on the Internet to collect real user data. These can be used to make money if Email address, Names and other information for advertising purposes are sold or passed on in criminal forums. With the data obtained, cyber criminals can also address future phishing attacks in a more targeted manner, and their attacks become more effective.