This article has been created to raise awareness of the risks that are associated with the GDPR phishing e-mails that have been recently reported. It also aims to show you how to remove the malware that is associated with the GDPR e-mail scam from your computer system.
A new wave of phishing type of e-mails coming in association with the latest GDPR regulations that were accepted on the 25th of May. The e-mails often come pretending to be various legitimate e-mail notifications that aim to notify users they can no longer use their services unless they accept the new GDPR privacy policy. The bad news here is that the GDPR e-mail scams are massive and the scammers are taking advantage of this new updated privacy policy to fool users into installing malware or giving away their personal information. If your computer has become a victim of malware or you believe that you have been duped by the GDPR e-mail scam, we advise that you read this article in order to learn how to remove any malware that may be residing on your computer or learn how to protect yourself from the GDPR scam.
Threat Summary
| Name | GDPR Scam Related Malware |
| Type | Phishing e-mails/Malspam |
| Short Description | Aims to infect your computer with malware or get you to input your personal information. |
| Symptoms | Your computer and web browser may lead you to phishing sites via which the crooks may collect important information or the e-mails may contain malicious attachments, the opening of which may result in malware infection. |
| Distribution Method | Via worms, botnet and other automated infection methods. |
| Detection Tool | See If Your System Has Been Affected by GDPR Scam Related Malware Download Malware Removal Tool | User Experience | Join Our Forum to Discuss GDPR Scam Related Malware. |
GDPR Scams – How Do They Trick Victims
The e-mails being sent often pretend to come from big companies. By doing this, the scammers hope that they can stress the victim, in case he or she has an account of the company at hand. Often companies, like PayPal, DHL, Amazon and other big names are used. In the case that has been detected by itpro.co.uk, the GDPR scam pretends to be the company Airbnb and the e-mail they sent to the victim appears like the following:
The fake e-mail spam is quite different from the original one which is simply a notification that Airbnb has updated their privacy policy:
The e-mails may also imitate other companies, the most often met of which are believed to be:
- DHL.
- eBay.
- Amazon.
- FedEx.
- Banks.
- Airport companies.
After the malware has already infected your computer, you may become a victim of this virus in a multitude of ways, including
The e-mail scams may pose different dangers to victims, and now we will explain about them in detail.
Danger of Information Theft As a Result of Phishing
One of the dangers that have been detected to be in association with these scamming messages has been reported to be information theft. An elderly man has reported falling victim of the scam and had a lot of money stolen as a result of such e-mails that asked him to update his personal and financial information. After the man has input his credit card details, the cyber-criminals reportedly nicked about 4000 British pounds from the man’s account. If those types of e-mails ask you to enter a third-party website to update your information, you must know not to do that, because any GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and it aims to do get businesses to do just the opposite, instead of asking for your information.
Danger of Malware infection
Any forms of malware have also been reported to infect victims as a result of such e-mails tricking victims into opening Microsoft documents only to trigger malicious macros causing the infection:
These types of documents are attached to the e-mails and may pose as updated privacy policies that the user is obliged to read. They may lead too different malware infections, including:
- Ransomware.
- Miner malware.
- Trojans.
- Rootkits.
How to Remove GDPR – Related Malware and Protect Yourself from Falling Victim to GDPR – Related Scams
In order to remove the GDPR-related malware from your computer, you will need to check for it first. You can do that with the aid of an advanced anti-malware software, which will automatically make sure to detect and remove any malware or adware objects that may currently be residing on your computer.
Automatically scan your computer to see if it has been compromised as a result of GDPR scam e-mails:
1. Install SpyHunter to scan for and remove GDPR Scam Related Malware.
Back up your data to secure it against infections and file encryption by GDPR Scam Related Malware in the future.
In order to protect yourself manually from such phishing e-mails in the future, we do recommend to learn how to do that by reading the related article underneath:
Furthermore, when it comes to checking if an e-mail attachment is legitimate or fake, you can also use the free service ZipeZip to which you can simply forward the e-mails, soon after which you will receive an reply, telling you whether or not the attachment is legitimate or fake. More information on how to use this free service can be found in the guide below:
