Outline:
‘Final Notice’ email purporting to be from a collections agency called ‘Australian Recoveries’ claims that you owe money to Parking Patrols Victoria and should click a link to download your infringement notice.
Brief Analysis:
The email is not a legitimate debt collection notice. The link in the email opens a website that attempts to trick you into downloading a .zip file. The .zip file contains a malicious JavaScript file that can download and install malware.
Subject: Australian Recoveries – FINAL NOTICE 8847-7983Dear Sir/Madam,FINAL NOTICERE: PARKING PATROLS (VIC) PTY LTD
Claim No: Amount: $55.60
Payment Notice id: Issue Date 03/31/2016
Deadline: 04/07/2016Funds for the Payment order that you created hasn’t been received.
If you are responsible for this payment order, and judicial procedure have been taken to recover the the debt,
legal fees and interest charge may be incurred. The restoration of these charges can be enforced. !!!
We are writing to you because, PARKING PATROLS (VIC) PTY LTD has given us a fine penalty.
We remind you that you have a deadline to pay the fine (or appeal against it) until 04/07/2016,
otherwise the fine will increased up to $ 88.
In case of ignoring this message legal action will be taken against you, as well as the all the expanses for the law suit, penalties and fees may apply.
To discover more details you need to cheack out your own infringement notice:
[Link removed]
==
[Name Removed]
Collections Officer
[Removed]
Detailed Analysis:
According to this email, which claims to be a ‘final notice’ from a collections agency called Australian Recoveries, you own money to Parking Patrols Victoria for parking fines. The rather threatening email claims that, if you don’t pay by the specified deadline, the debt will increase and legal action will be taken against you.
The message urges you to click a link to discover more details about the supposed infringement notice.
However, the email is certainly not a legitimate debt collection agency notification.
If you do click the link, you will be taken to a website that appears to belong to the collections agency. Once on the site, you will be prompted to download a .zip file that supposedly contains your infringement notice.
But, if you open this .zip file, you will find that it contains a JavaScript (.js) file. If you then click the .js file, malware may be downloaded and installed on your computer.
The exact malware payload may vary. But, it is most probably a version of the Locky ransomware. Once installed, Locky will encrypt all of the files on your computer and then demand a ransom to receive an encryption key.
If you receive one of these emails, do not click any links or open any attachments that it contains.
Last updated: April 1, 2016
First published: April 1, 2016
By Brett M. Christensen
About Hoax-Slayer
References
“Locky” ransomware – what you need to know
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/bogus-australian-recoveries-final-notice-email-points-to-malware/