Sextortion emails are going around trying to fool recipients out of their money.
Here’s what we know about the Sextortion emails scam.
- The scam has the person receiving an email claiming to know their password.
- This seems to be using passwords from an older data breach roughly 10 years ago.
- However, some people are seeing the scam include the last four digits of their phone numbers.
- In either case, the scammer claims to have recorded video of the person while they enjoy pornography.
- The scammer claims that they will release the video online and send it to friends and family if their demands aren’t met.
- These emails typically have the scammer asking for a payment made via Bitcoin.
- The scammer also claims they can release the video to some of the person’s friends as a form of proof that they have it.
- Here’s the thing to recipients of the email to do: ignore it.
- Do not respond to the email and definitely don’t open any attachments that may come with it.
- While the addition of the old password or phone number may make it seem more threatening, it isn’t anything to worry about.
- Go ahead and just mark it as spam, delete it and never worry about it again.
- It’s also worth noting that this scam first showed up about a year ago, but is getting more attention lately as scammers ramp up efforts to steal information from people.
You can search Cofense’s database for a complete list of those affected along with infographics and other resources to educate yourself about the “Sextortion” email scam.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.