Don't Fall Prey to the Latest 'Sextortion' E-mail Threat

The email addresses you by name and knows one of your online passwords – and even may include the last three digits of your phone number.

Assured it has your attention, it then proceeds to claim that malware placed on a porn site you've visited will expose you. Unless you pay up.

Count yourself lucky if you haven’t received this email or a similar one in the past few months.
These so-called sextortion scams are on the rise, fueled by the past years' data breaches that have released personal information into the wild.

The fraud banks on the chance that one of its potential marks – you, perhaps – has been visiting porn sites or has been cheating on a partner, and so believes the letter's sender really has secret information.

One such email claims that "while you were watching the video, your web browser acted as a RDP (Remote Desktop) and a keylogger provided me access to your display screen and webcam. Right after that, my software gathered all your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook account and email account."

What's more, it says you were recorded as you were viewing the porn. (“Yep! It’s you doing nasty things!” reads the scam letter.)  If that weren’t enough, the email claims all of your personal contacts — family, friends, co-workers — have been stolen. Now the blackmailer is giving you 24 hours to make a payment, often several thousand dollars, via Bitcoin.

According to Steven D’Antuono, chief of the FBI’s financial crime section, it’s what they call “a scare scam.” The FBI is seeing a rise in reported cases this summer, so much so that the Bureau issued an alert on the matter in August. (King 5 News, September 11, 2018)