Sextortion Emails Alert: 12 Things to Know About the Growing Phishing Scam

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Sextortion emails are going around trying to fool recipients out of their money.

Sextortion Emails Alert: 12 Things to Know About the Growing Phishing Scam

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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.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2019/08/sextortion-emails-alert/.

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