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Sextortion scam knows your password, but don’t fall for it

The scam emails claim to have compromising video of you, and back it up by showing you one of your passwords.
Written by
July 13, 2018
Naked Security email scam extortion Passwords

Someone has been sending sextortion scam emails with a new twist – one aimed at making it more likely you’ll be duped into paying a blackmail fee.
One of the emails arrived at Naked Security yesterday, via a diligent reader, just as Brian Krebs was breaking the story on his site.
It claims to have compromising images of the recipient and goes on to ask for payment in order to stop the images being released publicly. Attempting to manipulate victims by claiming to have compromising images of them is known as sextortion, and it’s been used for years. What makes this scam different is that it’s added something extra: it contains a real password used by the victim.
The email reads:

I do know, [PASSWORD REDACTED], is your password. You do not know me and you are probably thinking why you are getting this e mail, correct?
actually, I placed a malware on the adult videos (pornography) website and do you know what, you visited this web site to experience fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching videos, your internet browser initiated working as a RDP (Remote Desktop) that has a key logger which gave me accessibility to your display and also webcam. after that, my software program obtained all your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook, as well as email.
What exactly did I do?
I made a double-screen video. First part displays the video you were viewing (you've got a nice taste haha), and second part shows the recording of your webcam.
exactly what should you do?
Well, I believe, $2900 is a reasonable price tag for our little secret. You'll make the payment via Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).
BTC Address: 19ZFj3nLSJCgoAcvZSgxs6fWoEmvJhfKkY
(It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it)
Important:
You have one day to make the payment. (I've a unique pixel within this email message, and now I know that you have read this e mail). If I do not get the BitCoins, I will definitely send out your video to all of your contacts including relatives, co-workers, and so forth. Nonetheless, if I receive the payment, I'll erase the video immidiately. If you want evidence, reply with "Yes!" and I will send your video to your 9 friends. It is a non-negotiable offer, that being said do not waste my time and yours by replying to this e-mail.

Some details vary in different copies of the mail and if the campaign is successful it may evolve more over time. At the time of writing, the sender’s email address (either in the reply-to field or in one case included, in the text of the mail), the ransom amount and the bitcoin address all vary.
Update: later variations of this email that appeared after we first published this article have used passwords in the names of PDF attachments, or offered other forms of fake “proof”, like sending the email from your own email address.

The power of a password

Many people, even those who feel as though they could have been seen in a compromising position, would normally be too wary to fall for a sextortion scam with no evidence. Including a real password makes it seem more convincing, though, which might be enough to fool some people.
Several people mailed Krebs copies that they had received of this mail, and in all cases the passwords were more than 10 years old. The person who forwarded the message to us also said that the password was an old one.
But still, how did they get the old passwords?
The most likely explanation is that they’re passwords stolen in one of the many large data breaches that have occurred over the last decade. Passwords exposed by events like the 2012 LinkedIn breach are packaged up by criminals and sold and resold in their millions, even years after the event.
That’s because some data breaches take years to be discovered, and because the crooks know they can still get lucky with your password, even if you’ve changed it since the breach.
That’s because many of us like to reuse the same password over and over again, on lots of different sites. So, if a crook gets hold of a password you used for one website they’re likely to try it on other websites you might use, or sell it to somebody else who will – which is why you should never use the same (or similar) passwords on different sites.
And, as this scam shows, even an old password that doesn’t work anywhere still has value to the crooks, because they can use it to scare you. Just the fact that they know what one of your passwords used to be is very unsettling.

What to do?

  • Don’t panic, it’s a hoax. An email with an old password is NOT proof you’ve been hacked.
  • Use unique passwords for every site and app you use. If that sounds hard, then…
  • Use a password manager that can create and remember strong passwords for you.

Although this email comes from a criminal who hasn’t hacked your machine or spied on you, there is plenty of password-stealing, key-logging and webcam-using malware that wants to do exactly that. To keep it out we recommend you download Sophos Home.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SEXTORTION

A video from our What to do When… series on the Naked Security YouTube channel.

(Watch directly on YouTube if the video won’t play here.)

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130 Comments

I received this sextorion email 2 days ago.

Have you paid the money, if has anything happened

There’s no need to pay any money. It’s a scam. I looked up the source info on a few of the emails. They’re based out of Lagos, Nigeria. Big shocker there. So many scams have been traced back to Nigeria. When I was last online dating, I even ran into a few catfishers pretending to be deployed soldiers living in west Africa, most likely Nigeria as well. I recently received spam calls on my Google Voice number that sounded African, claiming that they’d have me arrested if I didn’t give them my social security number. They try really hard to get creative.

Was kind of funny for me because I don’t have a webcam… I mean… Of course, I mean… I haven’t been pleasuring myself! Yeah!…

Everyone keeps saying on other sites that only males get this. Well I’m female and I got this on my school email.XD

Haha yeh that’s the first thing I say too! No webcam mate, sorry but you missed out.

I got this email this afternoon as well. 26-1-2022
Checked it and found these website talking about this scammer

While it may be a scam and they don’t actually have access to the camera in this instance, this is yet another reason to cover the camera in some way (tape, lens cover, etc.) as a layer of reassurance. I still maintain that most are not able to activate the camera without triggering at least the indicator light (especially for those that are hardwired in to the power feed), though it has been proven possible for certain machines in certain circumstances in the past, so even that can’t be relied upon.
On a separate note…does the scammer at least let me pick the nine friends to send the proof to?!?

I very much have wondered the same thing since the story just broke “do they have anything? Or are they just sending out emails to anyone whose passwords they found?” Also curious what would happen if someone just said “nah, I’m not paying,” or flat out ignored them. Might be a good way to see if it’s all a bluff.
Plus, the whole “pixel” thing? I guess I could think of a way to track whether someone opened an email I sent them without read receipts, but if they just read their emails in plain text, it’d be a no go.

Well, they have a password that you have or used to have for some account you have or used to have. Probably from a years-old breach when we were all a bit less fussed about this whole cybersecurity thing.
That’s all they have. The rest is smoke and mirrors, huffery and puffery.
But even if it were all true and they knew it and you knew it and each one knew the other knew it, and so on…
…why would you pay? They’ve already got stolen personal data – paying them won’t get it back, with the result that they can repeat the demand (or dump the data) any time in the future they feel like it (or at any time they themselves get hacked – it happens).

The pixel thing is pretty much the only way to track email opens and its how all email open rate tracking works. If you have images turned off, which many email clients do by default, it doesn’t work, and if, as you say, you read emails in plain text, it doesn’t work.

Actually, the email (at least the one I received) does not include any pixel (any html img tag, BTW).

Good to know. I assumed it didn’t since knowing who has opened the email is only really useful if you’re going to follow through on your blackmail, which the attacker isn’t in a position to do.

It takes a *lot* of work to actually activate someone’s webcam, and no one can truly hack or hijack without you taking action first. That means taking a risk and clicking a link that seemingly goes nowhere. If you have a good firewall or anti-malware on your system, it’ll alert you. Even then, it all still depends on you visiting somewhere that, at the very least, contains a lot of grey-level activity. And honestly, you’re more likely to run into Google, Microsoft, or Apple tapping into your cameras. They have the technology, while the scammers don’t. I’ve checked a few of the IPs in the message sources. They all seem to be coming out of Nigeria. I guess the prince turned missionary now wants to dox everyone after backsliding and watching them mast… icate. :^)

Hmm. Only one of my computers (rarely used) has a webcam, which would be the first tip-off for me.
The email address below is found in 12 breaches at haveibeenpwned.com which probably puts me in their first tier. Several of those had easily decrypted passwords.
Since I’m well aware of both items above, I would give no credence to a sextortion email like this.

I received this email today….. I know how they got my email and old password. I fell for a phishing scam to my Netflix account about a year ago so that is how they got that old pass word and email. I guess it’s just a good guess that I look at porn…..hahahahaha. I’m tempted to email them back and fck with them for a bit but that seems like too much work.

Well I tried to reply with a well deserved “f**k you” but it didn’t work… I received an email from Outlook saying that the recipient domain didn’t exist.

Out of all the fake emails these Nigerian (confirmed) scammers have used, they’ve actually spoofed my own email once. I know of a few sources myself, and I’ve used it to send very LARGE text-based emails copying/pasting their own garbage, whenever I knew they were using a working email.

I knew it was a scam. I have no webcam, have not visited a porn site in quite a while, and I only masturbate in bed, far from my computer. I also am not surprised that a password I’ve used can be found. Still, the malevolence of the scam angered me in a way the Nigerian prince style ones didn’t, which is why I looked for info on it, see how much it’s proliferated– and apparently it has, plenty.
It’s pretty convincing, such that if I had recently visited a porn site, had a webcam, and had masturbated within view of it, I’d be nervous, at least until finding info on it being a scam. I hope as many people in that spot as possible find sites like this that expose it, because I’m sure there are some very scared people from the scam, and others who, even worse, forked over the money to the scumbag who sent these.

Another matter is that a double screen video proves nothing. Anyone could find a video of me in front of a my computer, I’ve done such as a part of my neural networks experiments. Showing me and a transformed version. And then include any video in the world, claiming that I am watching it.
And yes, I got one of these emails yesterday. Scary but, after some thinking, quite weak: a ten year old password of mine as the only evidence. Formulations that insinuate this and that, “you know what”, but no hard evidence at all.

Of course such a fake video would only show my face and upper body, but that’s what my webcam captures anyway.

What actually was more worrying to me was the possibility that he had broken into a computer of mine in this manner, together with the consequences. But had he done that, he would not be sending this kind of a threat.

It’s not enough to just use different passwords. I have my own domain name and as most sites register by email address plus password, I use a site-specific email alias instead of my real one.
The advantage of this it that a compromised account still only works for that single site. Without knowing the email addresses I use for other sites, they just won’t have access.
An extra advantage is that it provides an early warning system as spammers might start spamming a compromised account almost immediately. So if I use sophos@example.com to register for this site and I suddenly receive spam on this email address then I know this site has leaked my account. So I immediately change my account address and wait to see if the new address also gets spammed. (To check if they’re continuously leaking data.)
This trick allowed me to quickly discover the hacks of Adobe and LinkedIn in the past. (Plus a few other sites.) It is amazing how many sites are actually hacked because changing my address for one site or another has almost become a monthly routine…

While I can absolutely see the benefit of this approach, I question the practicality of it for the masses. If many people won’t even turn on 2FA or use a PW manager because of the extra time (if on an unauthenticated device, etc.), I doubt they would take the time to create a custom email or alias for each site they sign up for. Never mind the crowd that doesn’t even change their password at all.
I liked the ability to do this easily with Gmail addresses and the hash tag in the past, but too many sites didn’t support it. Maybe a mail server that would accept every address for a particular domain, but that could quite readily become a spam magnet…

I received 4 e-mail on 3 different e-mail addresses, all of them had the password wrong……

I got one yesterday too, very similar txt to the one described here..but they asked for less money: $1900. I felt compeled to reply an stall just for the fun since I dont have a webcam ;)…but better not to poke the bear

I have one last night demanding 3000 USD they start with giving me at least a ten year old pass word. Identically word for word as the others. Its a Scarry demanding to start with until you realize things don’t add up , my time for paying is up in the next three hours. I will keep you posted

Did anything happen? i am waiting on my time in 5 hours, since i received he email yesterday.

I got this email too – sent to myspace@mydomain so that’s where they got my details.

I just got one too. Very similar, even the sarcastic “you got nice taste” line. My demand was $10 000 which makes me wonder how many people have actually paid – hence he up’s the demand. I must say though, it was a very scary email to read; as there’s a possibilty. The password is also many years old, though my mind worked overtime for many hours trying to see which APP / site, (that I don’t use anymore) has that password – and did I change it.
I called my IT after a few sweats, and he put me on to this site. Very relieving !

I sent back loads emails telling the sender how his mother (I’ll use milder language) was sexually active with him and others

Yep, I got one of these 20th July. Password was 10+ years old and I only ever used it for one social media site and even then, only for very a short while, so I can see where they must have got my data from. It was very alarming to get an email quoting a password I recognised as my own, albeit an old one, demanding money. But it doesn’t take long to see nothing adds up. It’s a pretty flimsy attempt really… I hope :)

Got similar on Friday. Ignored it, nothing happened so far. Web camera is obfuscated regardless.

Makes want ask, which is worse, accessing porn or blackmailing those who may do so?
Almost EVERYONE who’s on line has accessed porn at some time, and that’s NOT a stretch of the imagination. Curiosity is one of the driving forces.

I have received this email twice in the last week from 2 different addresses. I knew it was a scam but unfortunately the password is still active on a few sites where I have bought goods, just trying to remember what they are so I can change them. At least its not banking or email passwords.

Yet another bitcoin address: 1Jp9CqZwVuwQdnpxbvuqRDNFN8M7dwkqkX
As far as I am concerned, I’d only wish that for this money he would digitally improve the images so that I look younger and attractive ;-)

I received two of these e-mails last week, both demanding a $7000 payment, the second with a Bitcoin address and a 1-day deadline for payment. The password was the one I used when I opened a MySpace account (which I didn’t even remember I had) many many years ago.

My wife received this e-mail couple weeks ago and was pretty upset. I told her it was BS and they probably got the password from one of the stolen credit card accounts. Two days later every single person in her Facebook account received a message from my wife, photo and all with a video attachment. Know it was not a real video but the people that tried to open it were now infected. Changed the password to Facebook, and suspended the account. People are still getting message from a closed account

I’ve had this today – got a password in that I still use on a few site (non-secure) so need to go and change them all.
But more worrying, immediately after I opened the email Windows defender picked up that a file in my recycle bin had this Trojan:Win32/Sonoko.A!ms.
Is this coincidence?
Currently doing a deep scan on my computer as I’m not sure whether it stopped it, removed it or it’s still there. Any help greatly appreciated.

I had one of these emails and reported it to the police and Action Fraud. It’s nothing less than attempted blackmail. Didn’t respond to it in any way but looking at the responses here maybe I need to run my antivirus software to dig out any nasties which may be lurking. I also posted notification on Facebook to let others know.

I received two of these emails. The password was a generic I use for stupid sites that make you create an account, ie. real estate agents, to view home listings, or other places which I do not place purchases from. However, I did briefly think, this could be interesting if the do have a sexvideos of me. It made me curious to which actress they got to play me since I don’t do my own stunts or sex scenes, or movies for that matter.

I received this email this morning. It contained a very old password, so that was not particularly troubling but what I don’t understand is, why was the email that was used to send it my main email address. How would a spammer link an obsolete password to a current email address?

Could be that the breached password was tied to some other identifier as well as (or instead of) an email address.
For example, if the leaked database had:
Adam Aardvark – P455WORD99
And the database the crooks acquired for sending spam had:
Adam Aardvark – currentemail@example.com
Then the key on which the databases would get matched up (“joined”, in SQL jargon) wouldn’t be an email address.

Received this today, but instead of the password it was an old cellphone number that i am no longer using. They obscured the number and only showed the last 4 digits, which makes me thinks they didn’t know it fully or they scrapped it from somewhere in that manner. Really freaked me out but luckily i am in IT and after poking around a while i realised its a scam. I am interested in knowing if anyone replied or had friends receive these videos at all?

I also received such mail and my first reaction was to simply delete it. The person wants 2000 dollars in bitcoin. Even if it is a scam, it is still unnerving.

Thanks for the comprehensive explanation, Danny. This is highly informational and enforces the argumemt why passwords need to be changed at one point or the other.

I got this email half an hour ago. Almost word for word, and again, an old password.
This time they say $6000, and they it’s negotiable.
Not sure how, as they told me not to bother replying to the email.
I have 24 hours and then it goes out to everyone.
More unnerving was it came through to my work address!!!
Luckily I opened it on the mail client on my iPhone, so I’m hoping whatever code it was won’t execute to copy my address book.
I see from the other replies that only one came back to say whether they actually had emails sent out. I did wonder as like the others it’s such an old password, but there is still the odd site I’ve used it on recently, and ironically I think it was a porn site, so very scary to get at 3am!!!

I received this email on 5th October 18 and it is very destressing, it was an old password but at first I thought it was my current password as I use the same ones and swap them ever few weeks, so now I will change all my passwords!

I received this too! And two different versions of it, the first one is similar to the ones mentioned here. But the second one is using my own email as a sender and they start by telling me that now they even have access to my email account and retrieved all my information and social network accounts. This is getting really scary!

I just happened to check my spam folder today, and yup, I got one too. They supposedly have a videotape of me checking out the porn sites or whatever. It had been sent to me earlier in October. Pathetic! [email redacted] said he wanted $6,000 “donation.” I guess they think people of a certain age are too dumb to smell a rat. Not THIS old lady! :-(

I received this email October 15 and just opened it today, wanted a 1000$ and it wasn’t even a password I use. I never made a password like that the one they sent was just an assortment of letters.

I got the email today and it freaked me out. It was an old password that I used to use but I still use it to unlock my computer. I was sure that the person could get in and have access to all my foto’s and video’s. I dont have any sexual related things on my laptop but still it is soo scary. I have to wait for 48 hours now and hope nothing will happen. I know its a scam but its making me still very uneasy.

I received several versions of this email in the last few days (Nov 15th). Pretty much word for word. I also know the two places where the password was used, one of which is (was?) environmental NGO (which seems no longer to exist) where I made a blog comment 8 years ago.

Guys, if a blackmailer had the video evidence they were threatening to use, wouldn’t they just send you a short clip cos that would hugely increase the chances they’d get what they want very quickly? So relax about this, but change any accounts that might use a leaked password.

I have received 4 different emails in my spam folder for this scam. It gave me a shock at first as the password looked like mine and then I realised it is not a password I have ever used. There are significant errors in it. Therefore I am pretty sure they got my “password” from when I nearly fell for a fake apple scam a couple of months ago, where I started to log into my old, unused apple iTunes account via the email link using an old password that I thought would have been the password I used on the account. However, I stopped, thought, “what am I doing? I’m falling for a scam!”, Went and logged in via the official site and found nothing there. The password the scammers have sent me is half of my old password. Dead give away.

Sort of similar but stated my company email rather than password…sadly I work in the Cyber Security world and wouldn’t be surprised my email has been skimmed somewhere and have’nt been to the sort of website that ‘Anonymous Sol’ states I did – was tempted to DOS him but that wont work – really feel that people like this are destroying the internet as much as if not more than state actors – I look forward to the next 72 hours – especially as he states he has my complete email accounts list…..

I got this mail yesterday, and once again today. I gusess it´s just for me to ignore and mark as spam. The password was a password I have had years ago. Hope I wont get this anymore, it´s just annoying.

I just got it recently, I’m pretty sure it’s a scam but I wanted to make sure! Kind of got freaked out

Just found one in my spam folder. I knew right away is was a scam. Never visited a porn site and don’t have a web cam lol. The email I got does not say anything about having my email password. I did go to haveibeenpwned.com and checked my email addy and it showed a breach from Ticketfly back last year. It was caught & Ticketfly reset everyone’s acct. and new password need to be made with them.. BUT that would not give them my email password. So how did they send a email to me using my email address.??
The email says ” As you may have noticed, I sent you an email from your account.
This means that I have full access to your account. I put a Trojan Virus which gives me full access and control over a computer or other device. Why your antivirus did not detect malware? Answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that your antivirus is silent.
transfer the amount of $683 bitcoin to this addy [redacted].
Sorry for the questions and the long post. I am older & don’t even have a smart phone but I do have bitdefender & Mywarebytes on my comp. Is there anything further I should do?
Thank You for the help.

The crooks are just hoping you’ll panic and believe their made-up lies. They put your name in the email headers to make it look as though you really were hacked, but that’s not a sign of being hacked (the email headers are as much part of the message as the text in the email itself, so the sender can put pretty much anything in there).
Don’t worry about what might be true in the message – think about everything that *is* false – if you don’t have a webcam, how could they possibly record anything?
Just delete the message and you are done…

I complained to the ISP the email came from. I think that is about all you can do, really.

I have now had several of these emails. First time (back in January), you feel a bit shocked to get a spam email with a valid password! On checking, it was, to my relief, an old Linked-In password, and not used for any other account. Which is when I remembered that LinkedIn had had a security breach in 2012 (and forced everyone to reset their passwords).
While I am careful with passwords, I wish I had been equally careful with creating new email accounts for each log-in. I do for sites I come across on the internet, but you tend to expect the big companies like LikedIn etc to do a better job of security.
The only consolation is that it has taken a few years before criminals started to use this stolen data.

This is so stupid. If they had a video, the best tactic is actually to show us the video (privately). But they never show us the video.

I have just received one, and the cretin wants $867 – in bitcoin. Why $867, and not, say, an even $1000? He (?) says he knows my password to linkedin. Funny, I don’t have an account with linkedin. He says he filmed me with my own camera – even funnier, as I don’t have a camera in, on, or around my desktop. What is interesting is the email itself. It is not what you see. It is what you don’t see, that interests me. I discovered it accidentally, when I copied and pasted the text for future study. If anyone wants to discuss it with me, PM me on FB. Thanks.

Here is the latest and greatest of the extortion/scam. I received this yesterday. I’m still not clear how they sent the email to me from my email account and password for email- that is all correct. I use yahoo mail for the host server and then pull from there into outlook. As an IT greenhorn, is it even possible for a hacker to backdoor into your computer via an email access door as the scam email would suggest?
Good news for me is i don’t do chat’s and don’t have a camera !
This is a non-negotiable offer, so please do not waste my personal and other people’s time by replying to this email.
As you can see i sent email from your email account The hacking was carried out using a hardware vulnerability through which you went online.
When you went online, my exploit downloaded my malicious code (rootkit) to your device.
I went around the security system in the router, installed an exploit there.
This is driver software, I constantly updated it, so antivirus is silent all time.
Since then I have been following you and others.
That is, I can see absolutely everything that you do, view and download your files and any data to yourself.
I also have access to the camera on your device, and I periodically take photos and videos with you.
At the moment, I have harvested a solid dirty stuff…
I saved all your email and conversations from your chats. I also saved the entire history of the sites you visit.
I made screenshot and photos using your camera of your device.
So, to the business!
I’m sure you don’t want to show these files and visiting history to all your contacts.
Transfer USD 708 to my Bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet [redacted]
Just copy and paste the BTC wallet address above (caSe senSiTivE) You will make a bitcoin payment (if you don’t know, look for (how to buy bitcoins) on Google).
My system automatically recognizes the transaction.
As soon as the specified amount is received, all your data will be destroyed from my server, and the rootkit will be automatically removed from your system.
Do not worry, I really will delete everything, since I am ‘working’ with many people who have fallen into your position.
Since opening this letter you have 120 hours (5 days).
If BTC not will be received, after the specified time has elapsed, from my server will automatically send link with all data to all your contacts.
I advise you to remain prudent and not engage in nonsense (all files on my server).
Good luck!

The text that appears in an email as “From” is actually part of the email itself, so the crook can just put your name in there to give the impression it came from you yourself – in the same way that someone could snailmail you a letter and sign off with, “Yours sincerely, Your Own Name.”

Show me what you said I did on March 10,2019 @ 8:05. You ain’t about crap.senf it to the 9 ppl you say you have

I have received this sort of extortion rubbish, but the password gleaned was the one I used to register on a specific website, NOT my email password, so linking that password to my email address would not work, thus no access to my address book etc..
And I do not have a webcam…

I got one too. If my friends, family, coworkers, and associates REALLY want to see a video me jerking off, they are free to email me. I’ll be happy to sent them one.

Just got a Belgian version of this – and it is worrying. I’m not paying up, but what I think we need to know is this. What proportion of these threats are carried out? If they have accessed my machine and got the address book, perhaps I need to warn people on my address lists (there area lot of them) so they don’t believe it if they are contacted, and so that they do not open an attachment and get infected. On the other hand, if there are very few instances of the threat being backed up by action, then I wouldn’t.

But then, how many people will own up to paying? I’ve not heard of anyone carrying out of the threat when they’ve not paid, apart from in the contribution from Anonymous above – August 3rd 2018 at 3:38pm. If a perp has the software to do as the threat says, then he/she has some/all of the info stated, so is likely to follow through the threat if not paid. I accept probably most do not have the capability, but wonder if further numbers on this are out there somewhere.

Got the same thing; but I have no camera and have been too lazy to visit porn sites, but they do have a valid password that I have used for a LOT of “non-sensitive” sites for years. so, pain in the ass, I will go change all those. No idea where they got the password, but they most definitely have nothing else. The message was in my spam folder; I doubt that Mcafee would let them into the computer to install their “malware”.

Same thing, they got a valid password that I still use a lot. I think this is what I need to start doing, changing the whole things again. what a pain

Got one, but the password is not mine for anything haha. Bloody chancers!

Got this a few days ago. The fact they new a password of mine, (albeit and old one I am no longer using), was a little creepy. But the fact everything else in the message was incorrect made me laugh. I don’t even have a webcam, lol.

I got one of these email today from SaveYourself30@[redacted] there problem is I don’t have a webcam reported to government scam watch site

these guys are relentless. I’ve blocked them on my email numerous times, yet the just change their email address. I’m running another scan to see if I might have the virus, but I never went to the website imbedded in the email.

I recd one of these mails, i sent a reply but my reply dint even get delivered with message “This is probably due to a problem or policy setting on the recipient’s email system”.
Has anybody tried to reach this kind of spammers?

I got one of these. The idiot who sent it seemed to think that I’m male (I’m not, I’m female), and there’s no way he would have proof of me viewing porn, because no such “proof” exists as I don’t even view such disgusting garbage (I find porn repulsive). So nice try to that guy.

I received a few of these mails last week to my company mail address and indeed with an old password and different senders. Wonder how they got my mail address and password.
I will discard those mails.

April 2020. I just received this same email from Johanna scapini claiming I had a porn site account and they did the split screen. I guess I was getting off cheap, they only wanted $1900 from me. I did report this to the appropriate authorities.

I got one today from Orella Bednersh she also wanted 1900.00. Who did you report it to so I can also report mine. Thanks

I got one today too. Ironically less than an hour after I visited an adult site, so a little wary as to if there can possibly be a connection between visiting a site (without login) and receiving the mail? Orpurely coincidetial?

I received an email from Hari Raab at 4.44am this morning. Same information as in the email above. Requesting $1900. 24hrs to pay or releases sensitive information. In my email they did provide a previous password which concerned me. For Australians….. I contacted PoliceLink and they advised me to make a complaint on scamwatch.gov.au and cybercrime. I have made a complaint on both. Keep the email and upload it if you are making a complaint via these portals.

Good advice.
We’ve written this new one up [2020-04-10] here:
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/04/10/sextortion-emails-and-porn-scams-are-back-dont-let-them-scare-you/
The scam has remained similar over the years but the actual text varies, as do the BTC addresses, the amounts and the fake “proof” that the crooks have hacked into your computer.

Got mine last night. No camera. Email almost word for word the same, but included a very old password. If we weren’t in lockdown would have had to take my computer to be looked at, glad I googled problem.

I also received it last night demanding 1900 dollars. Being in IT, I could tell much faster that it is just a scam. But I worry for innocent people who don’t know how their old password got compromised and would probably end up paying the scammer. Hope they Rot in hell

Thank you for this site. I received mine today, along with 3 other emails that made it look like my credit card details were also hijacked.

Couple days ago, I got the same email from A to Z same text. It made me afraid coz the password what they told me, was true and have been using in many websites and it was saved in chrome.
Then I found this article and it made me feel like oxygen hahaha thank God. Plz be careful with your personal life sharing with others. Plz stay safe and keep social distance to avoid the spread of COVID19.
Have a good Easter!

i have received the same email demanding for 1900 dollars. He knew my emirates skyward password.
he claimed that he hacked my camera and have my video. coincidentally, i visited an x rated website recenty,
i got scared but my husband told me its spam. we have used this password ages ago.

I’ve received similar email today, but they asked for $3500 this time, I don’t know what makes them think I could “donate” that much money to them. Huh. I went to haveibeenpwned.com to see where they got my decades old password, and turned out my neopets a/c was hacked years ago. Guess this is where they got my info. This baffled me when I first opened the email and saw my real (but very old) password in it. As I read, it feels like something don’t add up and that’s why I found this website. And to my surprise, these scammers are reported on here since DAY 1 the post was made on this website. Wow…really!? How pathetic are they! I deleted and ignored the email. Don’t fall for these blood suckers, they have no shame. I wish I knew a way to report them to the authority who can do something about them.

If you are in the US you can make cybercrime complaints via the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at https://www.ic3.gov

I know, [old pass], is your password.
I require your full attention for the coming 24 hours, or I will make sure you that you live out of guilt for the rest of your life.
Hi, you don’t know me personally. But I know nearly anything regarding you. Your entire facebook contact list, mobile phone contacts as well as all the digital activity in your computer from previous 127 days.
And this includes, your self pleasure video clips, which brings me to the primary motive why I ‘m writing this particular e-mail to you.
Well the last time you went to the porn material online sites, my spyware was triggered inside your computer system which ended up documenting a beautiful footage of your masturbation act by triggering your webcam.
(you got a exceptionally unusual preference by the way lmfao)
I own the full recording. If, perhaps you think I ‘m playing around, just reply proof and I will be forwarding the particular recording randomly to 6 people you’re friends with.
It may end up being your friends, co workers, boss, parents (I’m not sure! My system will randomly pick the contact details).
Would you be able to look into anyone’s eyes again after it? I doubt it…
However, doesn’t necessarily need to be that route.
I would like to make you a one time, non negotiable offer.
Purchase $ 2000 in bitcoin and send it on the down below address:
[REDACTED]
[CASE SENSITIVE so copy and paste it, and remove *** from it]
(If you do not understand how, google how to buy bitcoin. Do not waste my precious time)
If you send out this ‘donation’ (we will call it that?). Immediately after that, I will disappear for good . and never ever get in touch with you again. I will eliminate everything I have about you. You may carry on living your current regular day to day life with absolutely no concerns.
You’ve 24 hours in order to do so. Your time starts as soon you read this email. I have an unique code that will notify me once you read this mail therefore don’t try to play smart.

I ‘ve received this same e-mail twice during this week. It has annoyed me and really don’t know how to act? Any suggestions? By the way, the ” self pleasure video clips” have nothing to do with the reality! All I do with my computer or phone is watching series that are family-friendly!

There’s not a whole you you can do except delete, shrug and move on. Try not to let these crooks annoy you…

Hi, I received a similar email (I’ll copy paste it at the end of this message) and traced the IP back to Iowa in the USA.
I realise it is a false threat as I don’t really do weird stuff on the computer and my cam has always been tape covered up until a few weeks ago (because of the quarantine i’m working from home and have videomeetings, etc., however a light goes on when the camera is working and I haven’t noticed any strange activity).
However, I do have two concerns:
1. After receiving this email I googled some things to check something out. My computer has always been a little slow so. What concerns me a little is that while I hit the search button and the page was loading, I received a pop up, just for a split second, with my google search term written out between brackets and an image of a folder and a file being transefferd to another folder. It was jussssst for a split second but it got my alarmbells going off as I never saw that happen before.
2. I don’t think anyone has got anything on me as I said I don’t really do weird stuff and usually have my camera covered + the scam text is predictable and uses a really old password. However, I AM concered that my contacts or other personal data might have been leaked? I’ve got 24 hrs (about 12 left), So it will be just waiting and seeing, but I want to know how I can protect myself in the best way.
Questions:
1.I have antivirus/malware installed (Total AV pro & MCAfee Webadvisor). There was nothing found in scans. Can I consider my computer completely clean of any type of malware/spyware if nothing pops up in the scans?
2.Also, everything I have with regards to social media is set to private and I’m not a fan of synchronising contacts (email to phone, facebook, etc). Sometimes I can’t avoid synchronising, but I tried to keep everything seperate where I can. Is there anything else I can do to protect myself in the best way?
I know it is probably all a bluff but I’m always a bit paranoid and therefore try to secure everything and don’t keep compromising files. But the thought that someone might have gotten access to any personal data/files or my contacts is making me nervous.
[edited for length]

The “sextortion/webcam” scam described here is indeed just a bluff.
If you’re worried about malware that is lying undetected on your computer (and if there is any, which seems unlikely, it didn’t have anything to do with the scammers who sent you the sectortion email), you could always try our free Virus Removal Tool, which you can use without uninstalling your existing anti-virus first.
See:
https://sophos.com/freetools

Yeah, they’re back at it again. I just got one today. Good Lord. I am nearly 80 years old! They have got to be kidding. DON’T FALL FOR THIS SCAM.

I’ve gotten two of these in the past week, both having passwords of mine therein. I immediately went in a did an update of any passwords I was using that might have been repeated, and I changed the main password on my password manager, Dashlane. I’d personally like to track down these [REDACTED] and [REDACT] them.

I got one today, best thing is they told me to send them 2000 bitcoin, but didn’t put an address to send it. If you’re gonna scam people, gotta follow through with details jerks.

My Wife got this last week, I got one today, from different email addresses and different bitcoin addresses. Yes, they were old passwords, ones used 4-5 years ago, bit not recently.

I received a similar scam email today, supposedly from a “[REDACTED].edu” email address (which does not exist). In my case, the password they “know” is NOT one that I’ve ever used — worst case, it was a temporary password that I immediately changed when I initially signed up. I do not visit the type of website they mentioned. I do not have a webcam. I wish there was a way to respond to these scammers! Hopefully these details can help with further investigation, if they can trace who registered for bitcoin addresses, even temporarily. They asked for $1139 and gave me the following BTC (bitcoin?) address to send it to: [REDACTED] with the instructions “[case SeNSiTiVe, copy and paste it].”

I got one of these emails two months ago, and I’ve pretty much had a sick feeling in my throat ever since then. I haven’t been on any sites in a few months, but I only use my phone. Could they have hacked my phone camera? I’ve read about 100 different articles and seen so many different examples of the same type of email scam, but my anxiety is through the roof right now.

Try watching the video in the article. It should set your mind at rest – whether you’re on a laptop, desktop computer, tablet or phone.

Is it possible to get malware on porn sites? Is it possible to place malware on such a site??… i only use my phone so im worried my android might of been recorded. I read that android is the easiest to get hacked.

Adnroid malware can come from many sources – even from Google Play itself. In fact, malware can (though usually does not!) appear even on a mainstream website if the site itself gets hacked, or if one of the online ad “suppliers” used by the site gets hacked or tricked.
Having said that, you can improve your safety and security on Android by [a] turning OFF the option to allow apps from unknown sources (Google Play is far from perfect but it does get scrutiny from Google, and Google can and will remove apps that prove to be rogue) and [b] using a third party anti-virus. You will find a link to ours (it’s free) at the bottom of the article.

Thanks Paul, wondering beacuse i dont watch any bad things just downloaded some games on my phone and my android had been acting strange..
Thanks for the advice.

Just go to HaveIbeenPWND and put your email into it and it will tell you what site your likely to have been compromised from. I had the email demanding 1037 but its to an old email address I used for scam baiting a few years back and PWND only found the 1 site that email was associated to, funny thing I tried logging in before the email but I had forgotten the password , thanks for reminding me btw. The only contacts on that email are fellow mujus would love to see the conversations if they could contact them. And nope I haven`t replied (yet) although I have got a pretty little Sarah Barry that has been left orphaned and is looking for someone to share her 10m with

I got the same scam about my domestic sex whatever… It was funny, I did not open the attachment thinking about virus, he say about videos thought my infected device. I just put the e mail in spam. This person is active again because I can see the comments date were from 2018, it is 2021.

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