I've been getting E-mails such as the one below for about 2½ weeks now. It's a scam. I haven't done what they claim and if I did I wouldn't care if they told the world. But the perpetrators of this little attempt at extortion are a total fraud themselves.
The one thing they have done is to spoof my E-mail address. This is not a particularly difficult thing to do. The rest of their message is entirely made up. They have not planted malware on my computer, they do not have any videos of me, I have neither a camera nor a microphone on my computer and they do not have all of my contacts.
Variously they have demanded $1,000, $519, $682 or $688 in these scam E-mails. The bitcoin wallet address is different in every one of these E-mails. So it's possible that there are a number of people who have gotten in on this scam and are all trying to do the same thing. Or maybe some script kiddies have decided to spoof the original scammers and some or all of the E-mails I'm getting wouldn't relate to a real bitcoin wallet address even if I tried to send them something.
Basically, this is one of those scams that takes a shotgun approach. It can't possibly work on someone like me, but there are people who would be ashamed of being found to have visited adult
sites, and who are not savvy enough about computers, E-mail and scams to see through this E-mail scam right away. With the shotgun approach, however, if they send out these E-mails to millions of people they may very well end up getting some number of suckers who will send them some money.
So if you get something like this, don't worry about it. Even if you do visit the sites they go on about, the perpetrators of this fraud can't really hurt you. One thing is important, however. You should not reply to the E-mail, not even to write to the abuse
or complaint
address of the server that putatively sent the E-mail to you. That may just let the scammers know that they have found a live E-mail address and you'll be targeted with a lot more of this kind of crap.
Below is one of the scam E-mails that I've gotten.
Subject: Be sure to read this message! Your personal data is threatened!
Date: 25 Jan 2019 13:52:26 +0000
From: 123456@glib.com
To: 123456@glib.com
Hello!
As you may have noticed, I sent you an email from your account. This means that I have full access to your account.
I've been watching you for a few months now. The fact is that you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.
If you are not familiar with this, I will explain. Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device. This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.
I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.
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.
I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video that you watched. With one click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on social networks.
I can also post access to all your e-mail correspondence and messengers that you use.
If you want to prevent this, transfer the amount of $688 to my bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, write to Google: "Buy Bitcoin").
My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 1Jh1miFmhTmGQvn6Zejaqg85viD4k1vVjG
After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear me again. I give you 48 hours to pay.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work when you see this letter.
Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.
If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.
Best wishes!
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