If so, take a deep breath—you’re likely the target of a “sextortion” scam Using a mix of fear, urgency, and technical jargon, scammers try to push you into making. A sextortion scam is when a criminal attempts to blackmail someone, usually by email The criminal will claim they have login details or a video of the victim. In these sextortion scams, the scammers carefully provided steps on how to pay them using bitcoin The scammers pressure the victim to act within a period of time — 2 days in the examples above
Scammers use this tactic to get their victims to pay fast — before they have time to think things through or get any help. How does the bitcoin sextortion scam work The bitcoin sextortion scam typically starts with the cybercriminals obtaining a list of email addresses and personal information from a data breach or other sources They then send out mass emails to these addresses, hoping that some recipients will fall for their threats and pay the ransom. Malwarebytes recently received a report about a fresh spate of bitcoin sextortion scam campaigns doing the rounds Bitcoin sextortion scams tend to email you to say they’ve videoed you on your webcam performing sexual acts in private, and ask you to pay them amount in bitcoin to keep the video (which doesn’t exist) private.
1,900 messages and 205 bitcoin addresses spanning four years, author
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