The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines “sextortion” as “a serious crime that occurs when someone threatens to distribute your private and sensitive material if you don’t provide them images of a sexual nature, sexual favors or money.”
In a new twist to this old crime, the criminals attempt to convince potential victims they have embarrassing video although they do not. Here is how it works.
The target receives an email with one of his passwords in the subject line. The body of the email says something such as this:
Well, I actually placed a malware on the porn website and guess what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching the video, your web browser acted as a RDP (Remote Desktop) and a keylogger which 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.
The email goes on to say that the scammer has a split-screen video of the victim watching porn next to what he was watching. If he doesn’t pay, the scammer will send the video to all of the victim’s contacts. There are multiple versions of this email and the amount of Bitcoin payment demanded varies, but versions of this scam have popped up in many email inboxes recently.
The inclusion of one of the victim’s passwords may make the threat appear convincing to victims. I received one of these emails and had a moment of worry, until I realized that I never visit porn sites so the bad guy could not have infected my machine or obtained embarrassing video of me! The email is a bluff. The email and password combination used in these emails is one obtained in one of the many data breaches of sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Yahoo and others.
This bluff can be effective, though, when you consider that in 2017 the porn website Pornhub got 78.1 million visits a day. That is only one site, and it demonstrates that there area lot of potential victims who may at least wonder if it is true.
If you receive one of these emails, it is almost certain that there is no video. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recommends against paying the ransom, even if you fear the threat may be real.
If you are concerned about the possibility of hackers accessing your webcam, Lifewire offers several tips on securing it, including the simplest: Cover the camera with a piece of electrical tape.
