18 May Sextortion Ransom E-Mails
Over the last month, we’ve been inundated with messages, phone calls and E-mails about an old threat with new life. Sextortion. The E-Mail has a few variables which indicate that your computer has been infected with a virus or malware from the hacker that’s sending you an email directly. In some cases, it may also include a password you used on a LinkedIn in 2012. In 2012, 6.5 million LinkedIn account details were leaked and made available for purchase on the ‘dark web’. If you receive one of these sextortion e-mails with a password, its very likely that was your LinkedIn password in 2012.
This threat is an extremely basic attempt to fool people into thinking that they’ve been caught looking an adult content whilst capturing the view from your webcam at the same time. In all cases we’ve witnessed, the e-mail is demanding a fee of between $600 & $1,000 worth of bitcoin to make sure these images are not subject to public viewing & distribution directly to your contact list. We’ve even seen the attempts to further intimidate victims by suggesting proof is only a few mouse clicks away with an offer to send 5 of your contacts some of the content as proof it exists… Brutal. If it was real of course you’d do what ever you can to pay the bitcoin ransom, but all the information we’ve gathered is simple… It’s not real.
This does lead to another issue though, those of you that have received this e-mail and the password in the body of the email is the same password you use today… you’re not doing enough to stay protected. This LinkedIn hack was 6 years ago, and that is way too long to hold on to a password. We suggest changing passwords to important accounts at least every 3 months.
If you think its time your computer had a once over for malware & virus activity, give us a call and book an appointment today. We’ll come to you. 1800 124 234.