Reports are coming in about a new extortion scam where scammers email you stating that they know the recipient's password, have installed malware on the computer, created
videos of the recipient using adult web sites through their webcam, and have stolen the recipient's contacts.
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The good news is that this is just a scam and no one has caught the recipient doing anything they don't want seen on video. The bad news, though, is that these attackers may actually know a recipients password from data breaches.
Yesterday a BleepingComputer member
posted in our forums about this type of email scam and then security researcher
SecGuru discovered a similar email, shown above, today.
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SecGuru told BleepingComputer that the extortionists are finding leaked account credentials from data breaches and using those leaked passwords when contacting the victim. This adds a sense of legitimacy to the emails as the victims will see passwords that they are currently using or have used in the past.
Once again, this is a scam, nothing has been installed on your computer, and they do not have any video of you doing anything. Therefore, do not be concerned if you receive one of these emails. At the same time, if the passwords sent in the email is one that you are currently using, I strongly suggest you change it immediately.
The full text of one of these extortion email scam can be seen below:
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