The reason it’s a good bogus scare tactic is because it’s happened in the past: people have hijacked cameras, people have installed key loggers. All of that stuff it something that might have happened in some alternative universe.
Personally, I also read computer news for technical content, and I’m not aware of any new, current, risks that would lead me to think keyloggers or camera-capture software are a suddenly worse problem affecting more people.
Your computer and smartphone are a window to the outside world. It’s worth remembering that sometimes people look in through windows, and to the extent that you can, you should keep the curtains closed.
It’s possible, as Vbulletin, along with Adobe and LinkedIn were the three sites where my email address that was used to send me the ransom note was compromised.
LOL
I got that email, or very close to it
I laughed and deleted it
i have not visited any porn sites
I dont have a webcam or a laptop
the password was not anything i have ever used
i dont have facebook etc to get contact from
I figure the guy must be related to the rich nigerian princess that has found me immensely attractive and if i can help her get her money into a US bank would like to come here and marry me.
Yes, I got a version almost identical to one of those linked above. It included my least secure password, the one I’ve used for years on sites for which I don’t care if I get hacked. It is in fact the password I used on LinkedIn, which I changed after the LinkedIn security breach.
I work in IT and recently helped one of my customers who had received exactly the same email. We performed an Experian dark web scan (which is free) and found that the email address and password listed in the scam email were shown under the dark web scan list of compromised accounts. Funny enough, the scammer seems to have obtained the email address and password for the scam email from the Equifax data breach of 2017, then used it to try and scam $2,900 in bitcoin.
The price is going up, 2 years ago the emails wanted only $300 and now they want nearly 3x that amount. My guess is that, for every 10,000 people they email, they get 100 of them to pay. That’s a crazy amount of money to make each month doing nothing but spamming from a hacked list.
I’ve gotten a similar email twice, but it doesn’t say anything about a password. It just has an old street address I lived at a long time ago. The first one was obviously bogus, (because I don’t watch porn), but when the second one came about a week letter–with pretty much the same language but pretending to be completely different person–I just laughed.
Anyone attempting actual extortion via this method would at a minimum, along with the ransom note, include a screen cap of the spit screen video, and a handful of the contacts the vid will be sent to. The scammer of the above sample email goes on and on about all the alleged effort they’ve gone to. It would take one extra minute to include the additional proof demonstrating it’s not a scam.
I may have gotten this email, but I do not read spam, so I wouldn’t know. Every few days I scan through my spam folder, but I haven’t found a “real” email mistaken for spam in eons. I then delete all.
I’ve been sending videos of my porn sexcapades to my entire contact list for years now, outsourcing it might free up some time but $2000 is too rich for me.
Let’s discuss logistics for a minute.
Looking at my laptop, and the camera it has, even if I were watching videos on it, the only thing the camera would show would be my face from the neck up making the dead behind the eyes expression everyone has while staring at a computer screen. I don’t think the camera would capture any, um, local action, unless I stood up or somehow wanted to be seen.
So the threat of showing a video of me split screened with porn would look the same as me split screened with youtube.
My interpretation of the threat of a split-screen video was that it would show you alongside with the filth you were watching, and others would make the obvious connection.
I got several a month or so ago that said they had photos of me wanking. Really? In front of my computer (which, BTW, lacks a webcam). I laughed and deleted them. They were all the same. Never got one about porn sites (which I don’t visit anyway).
My husband opened one this evening just before we went out for his birthday dinner. He has spent the better part of the last two hours insisting that he hasn’t been watching porn on his laptop and it has taken me until just now to convince him that it’s a scam. ������
Yep, got that one this week after a friend told me about it. Yes, total scam. The piece of info, I assume, is your password? There was a butchered version of it in my email. It wasn’t one I used in about ten years, and it wasn’t quite right, but close enough. I assume somebody got a hold of a hacked password list and eventually cracked it. Big whoop.
ETA: Yes, Reality Chuck’s version is what I got, I think down to the letter and the amounts (I deleted mine since, so can’t verify, but all that sounds right.)
My reaction upon hearing this scam from my friend (the day before I received the exact same email) was that someone has been watching Black Mirror.
To be honest, though, it’s a pretty brilliant scam. Just get an old hacked password list, fire off a bunch of automated emails, and if a few suckers fall for it, hey, bank.