Fake British Gas Bill Emails Point to Ransomware

The emails are not from British Gas. The UK’s Action Fraud website is warning consumers that clicking links in the bogus emails opens a malware website.

The Action Fraud report notes :

The emails entitled “Your summer gas & electricity bill” contain links that take people to a website where they are told to download a file in order to view their bill.

After downloading the file, the virus locks you out of your computer and then directs you to an online payment page.

British Gas say that their emails will always be personalised and often quote your British Gas account number (where the email relates specifically to your account) and will only provide links back to the britishgas.co.uk website.

If you receive one of these emails do not click on any links. Instead, go to the British Gas website directly and log in from there.

The subject line and other elements may vary in different incarnations of these malware emails.

Note that criminals often use fake utility bill emails as a means of distributing malware.