Latest Blackmail Phishing email

[thedirector]

I just received an email that gave me pause for a few seconds before realising it must be a scam. The key things that separates this phishing email from others is that not only is it addressed to me by my Christian name, but the subject line includes a password that I have used in the past. To be honest, there are probably some sites I have forgotten about where it might still work. I'm posting the email in full below because I would hate anyone here who is vulnerable to get scared and fall for this scam. There are a few grammatical errors in the mail, but nothing like the nonsense we used to receive a few years ago about the King of Nigeria etc.

Many people's password details have been stolen from lots sites over the years. Sites such as Yahoo, Adobe, Dropbox, Linkedin, plex etc have all been hacked, so if you have accounts with these sites and your passwords is not very complex, the password you used at that site is probably out there on the internet.

You can check if your accounts have been breached as apart of any of the large hacks by going to - https://haveibeenpwned.com/

The usual steps to security should always be followed, complex passwords (the longer the better), different passwords for each site, don't click links in phishing emails, cover your webcam when not in use etc.

If you receive the email below, don't pay money, and do not reply or click any links. If you do so, the blackmailers will know you might be vulnerable and try harder.

I expect the email below is automatically generated by a script that reads through the data of the hacked sites above and places the forename and password in the subject line, inserts the password into the body, and completes the email with standard text.

The email is very threatening, and pretty scary if you took it to be true. The subject line was my first name and a password I've used in the past. The rest of the email reads:

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I do know xxxxxxxx is your passphrase. Lets get directly to the point. No-one has paid me to check about you. You don't know me and you're probably wondering why you're getting this e mail?

Well, I placed a software on the adult video clips (sex sites) website and there's more, you visited this site to have fun (you know what I mean). When you were viewing videos, your browser started functioning as a Remote Desktop that has a key logger which provided me with accessibility to your display and also web camera. Right after that, my software program collected your complete contacts from your Messenger, social networks, and email . And then I made a video. First part displays the video you were watching (you have a nice taste haha), and second part shows the view of your web cam, and it is u.

You have a pair of solutions. We should check out each of these choices in particulars:

Very first solution is to skip this email. Then, I most certainly will send your video recording to each of your your personal contacts and thus think about concerning the disgrace you experience. Moreover if you happen to be in an important relationship, just how it will eventually affect?

In the second place alternative would be to pay me $7000. Lets think of it as a donation. In this situation, I most certainly will immediately discard your videotape. You can continue your way of life like this never occurred and you surely will never hear back again from me.

You will make the payment by Bitcoin (if you do not know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).

BTC Address to send to: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[CASE SENSITIVE copy and paste it]

Should you are wondering about going to the law, well, this email message cannot be traced back to me. I have covered my actions. I am just not looking to demand a huge amount, I simply want to be rewarded. I've a special pixel in this e-mail, and now I know that you have read through this email message. You have one day in order to make the payment. If I don't get the BitCoins, I definitely will send out your video recording to all of your contacts including friends and family, co-workers, etc. Nevertheless, if I receive the payment, I'll erase the recording right away. If you want to have evidence, reply with Yeah and I will send your video recording to your 10 contacts. This is the non:negotiable offer and thus please don't waste mine time and yours by replying to this mail.

[MissMaria]

Should you conciser taking this to the police there is something you should know fro someone who douse have a small amount of experience with computer (not a massive amount mind you) but enough to know that nothing is truly untraceable online no matter how well you try to hide it and due to the nature of the request being about money only it is attempted extortion which is illegal/crime

[thedirector]

Originally Posted by MissMaria

Should you conciser taking this to the police there is something you should know fro someone who douse have a small amount of experience with computer (not a massive amount mind you) but enough to know that nothing is truly untraceable online no matter how well you try to hide it and due to the nature of the request being about money only it is attempted extortion which is illegal/crime

Absolutely. It’s a very serious offence and as you say, there is always a trail to follow. It’s just a case of how hard the trail is to follow, especially as it bounces across servers in different countries, it just becomes more dificult to get access to the logs on servers needed to locate the actual sender.

There is a Police website for logging these emails, I may send it on.

[Runesmith]

Last Saturday I received an email very similar to yours. I remembered reading this thread some time back, so I thought it might be a good idea to update it.

First of all, this guy is no IT whiz. Actually, he sucks at IT security. He did bounce off the email off a few servers, but it looks like it originated in Ukraine - the originating server is registered to a technical university in Lvov (unless he's a real whiz, in which case it didn't).

I use an outlook address (well, technically hotmail) but I use a plain-text email client for that account. So a "special pixel" wouldn't get triggered. By the way, that special pixel thing is not a high tech hacker technology - those blasted email marketeers (aka spammers) have been using it for years to detect live accounts.

So I opened up the email to look at the coding. No, there was no "special pixel." And guess what - the idiot used an Outlook thick client to compose the mail, and he composed it in HTML. So most likely he opens mails in HTML using Outlook too.

So I wrote a reply, telling him to go to hell. In the mail, I embedded an HTML header that launched an Outlook scripting object, which would send all the mails currently in the inbox to the junk mail folder and block senders (no permanent damage though - to do permanent damage I would need to escalate the privileges and I wasn't going to spend my Saturday afternoon on that). Then the script creates a new mail, with the title "You've been pwnd" and with a body that contains the same phrase a thousand times.

So if this amateur bungler doesn't use a good anti-virus program, he's in for a surprise.

[Runesmith]

PS: I know where he got the password from. It's from an "instagram of amateur nudes" site I registered to in the hay days of free internet many years ago, called SmutVibes. Well, this "hacker" probably didn't get it himself. He probably paid for a dump of passwords.

The reason why I know is because each of my passwords are site-specific. I use a numeric in a random place in each password (which have some common and some unique elements), and I can look up later exactly which site the password is for (and, more conveniently, vice-versa) without having to store passwords in a key chain or a plain text file.

SmutVibes no longer exists (I think), but it was fun while it lasted. Even if it exists, please don't visit that site - if it exists today in any form, it would be a malware infested fake pay site.

[Ly Ph]

I don't think its just that. I know some one who had their password sent to them and its not the sort of site they would use. The scam was in the news a while ago. I would guess some one just bought a list of various passwords from multiple security leaks that some one else compiled and then sent out the emails. Apparently you get one saying they know the password send a small amount of money. The second includes your password and a larger fee.

The problem with e-coins is its impossible to know what wallet belongs to who until you cash out. Though the actually wallets activity is easily tracked as every computer connected will contain that information. As far as I am aware anyway.