A widely sent email is threatening to expose the porn habits of anyone who opens it—unless the right price is paid. But don’t worry: The email and its threat are a scam.
Two similar sextortion scams, one in Dutch and one in English, have been identified this week, Gizmodo reports. A Dutch publication reported that hackers made as much from €40,000 from an email circulating in the Netherlands. Security researcher SecGuru discovered a similar version of the email written in English that, according to Bleeping Computer, extorted $2,353 from four victims by Wednesday.
What’s particularly eerie about the email is that it appears to come from the receiver’s own email address. The subject line also includes the receiver’s email address with the words “48 hours to pay.” In the English version, hackers claim to have “access to your messages, social media accounts, and messengers” and give you 48 hours to send $800 in bitcoin, otherwise they’ll send your data to every contact on your device.
The email scam particularly targets users concerned about their use of adult websites.
“We are aware of your little and big secrets… yeah, you do have them,” the English email says. “We saw and recorded your doings on porn websites. Your tastes are so weird, you know..”
Bleeping Computer recommends that if you have received an email like this to delete it and perform an antivirus scan on your computer. Certainly don’t send the fraudsters any money.
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H/T Gizmodo
