Have you been pwned with bitcoin extortion requests?

[MichaelCorfman]

Over the past few weeks I have been barraged with a new type of hacker extortion request.

Here is an example of such an email [with the password edited out]:

I am well aware [password] is your pass. Lets get right to point. You don't know me and you're probably wondering why you're getting this mail? Not one person has paid me to check you.

Well, I actually setup a malware on the adult streaming (porn) web-site and guess what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what I mean). When you were viewing videos, your browser started out functioning as a Remote Desktop having a keylogger which gave me access to your display screen and also cam. Right after that, my software collected all of your contacts from your Messenger, social networks, as well as e-mail . Next I created a double-screen video. 1st part displays the video you were watching (you've got a nice taste hahah), and next part shows the view of your webcam, and its u.

You actually have two alternatives. We should read up on each of these possibilities in details:

Very first choice is to ignore this email message. As a consequence, I will send your video recording to just about all of your personal contacts and think about about the awkwardness that you receive. And likewise should you be in a relationship, precisely how it will eventually affect?

Second alternative should be to give me $6000. Let us describe it as a donation. In such a case, I most certainly will without delay remove your video. You could keep on your daily life like this never happened and you are never going to hear back again from me.

You'll make the payment via Bitcoin (if you do not know this, search "how to buy bitcoin" in Google).

BTC Address to send to: 1P4koopBCYsfUDT1Jecme6NqXzRGpcYeZx
[CASE-SENSITIVE copy & paste it]

Should you are wondering about going to the cop, well, this e mail cannot be traced back to me. I have dealt with my moves. I am just not looking to charge a fee a whole lot, I only want to be paid.

You now have one day in order to pay. I've a unique pixel in this mail, and right now I know that you have read through this message. If I don't receive the BitCoins, I will send your video recording to all of your contacts including relatives, co-workers, and many others. Nonetheless, if I receive the payment, I will destroy the video right away. If you really want proof, reply with Yeah! then I definitely will send your video to your 5 contacts. It's a non-negotiable offer, and so do not waste my time and yours by responding to this e-mail.

In my case, the subject line of the email was an ancient password I used to use on sites where security was not very important. I knew that I never used that password anymore, and I also knew that the claims were just plain false. But I can certainly imagine an audience that would be concerned about such a claim, where the password might be recent, and where some of the clearly false claims around the hacking would not be understood to be false by the recipient.

I figured this was probably a widespread effort, but the extent became clearer to me only after the following post from a couple days ago:

Could be related to this or not, but a couple of weeks ago I've started getting spam emails that claim to know my password (and they do). They want $800 in bitcoin, which I'm not paying because it's a trick. They digged up an old password somewhere but don't have anything else. Yet they claim to have some incriminating footage of me.

Muppet shares some insight on what was going on in the following post:

Dan that is a known recent attack. They got your password from a hack of a third party service, not your server. Check your email addresses against haveibeenpwned.com and you'll likely find out exactly where.

So, for this weeks post, I ask if you have been pwned and received a similar email message.

And if you have not heard of the word "pwned" before, here is a link to the definition from the urban dictionary: pwned

Besides voting in the poll, I invite you to share any experiences receiving email extorsion requests.

Michael

[medlington]

Ive had that exact same email and many other similar ones over the past 2 weeks

[AussieDave]

I received the identical BTC scam a few months back. So too did Webzcas. We both received them within a day or two of each other.

It actually made me laugh, cause I don't think any of my friends would give a toss.

Beside, the password listed, that was years-old. And, coincidentally, the p/w quoted, and extortion sent, was to the email addy that was "hacked" many moons ago. Since then all my p/w's have been updated to upper/lower case alpha/numerical and special characters.

[RMRkT]

A very complete dump of pretty much every breech was released about a year back to the public, guess some genius has decided to use it like this.

As always, keep your passwords secure.

haveibeenpwned.com

This site is always pretty handy, it pretty much has the same dump and more, so check out when and where you were compromised.

[Cash Bonus]

I've received similar emails to you, Michael. Though only to a small extent but with the same intentions and ideas.

[Strider1973]

It's interesting that it's fully transparent how much the hacker earned with this email.

For the email above, it's 0$ (https://www.blockchain.com/de/btc/ad...e6NqXzRGpcYeZx)

I had received a similar email saying that my email account was hacked (and the sender in the email was my own email address). It asked for 300$ in BTC. Interestingly, there were about 15 payments of roughly 300$ each to that BTC address...

[sweetbet]

I'm not sure if I have since I don't read all the emails I receive, especially if they're from unknown persons. Unless I know the sender, or am expecting to receive the email, I'll usually just skim through the first 2 sentences and press delete

[Nitrogen Sports]

Working that the Director of Affiliates for a large bitcoin sports book and casino, I would call it a good week if I saw two emails similar to the original in a week.

One would have to assume that they're not that successful as upon checking blockchain.info, no once have I seen where a payment has been made to these con-artists.

[AndyBonus]

I have had loads of these from a .jp email, and now I am getting them from another email address. The password they quote is so old, that I don't even remember using it, and the accusations are laughable. I just laugh, delete and ignore stuff like that.

I found a bitcoin abuse report page listing the bitcoin address in the email yesterday, and it had 150 reports. That count has now risen by 100 since yesterday.

[wonderpunter]

I have had about 3 of them, most are just bluffs

[tufty]

I have had loads of these, all "sent" from my email address and I have quite a few email addresses. To people who are less aware of scamming techniques (like anyone can pretend to send from another email address) the emails might be fairly persuasive. I certainly spent longer analysing them than the usual instant delete. It is making the scammers some money as I too saw payments to the BTC addresses. So expect to received a ton more of these emails. When they have quoted a password it was one that I had used in the distant past, but not in many places and only in one place in the last couple of years: the UK National Lottery website. I know they had a data breach necessitating a password change, so I assumed that's where they got it.

[eenzoo]

Jesus ... in the number of passwords I use and adult sites I visit, I should receive tons of that stuff. but nothing yet.

[Malikbhai]

Miss Nigerian princes. Scams were simpler back then.

[Strider1973]

I have had loads of these from a .jp email, and now I am getting them from another email address. The password they quote is so old, that I don't even remember using it, and the accusations are laughable. I just laugh, delete and ignore stuff like that.

I found a bitcoin abuse report page listing the bitcoin address in the email yesterday, and it had 150 reports. That count has now risen by 100 since yesterday.

Well, now we know why we get so many of these emails: the business is profitable. The address you mentioned has already received1 BTC, all payments of about 850$ equivalent: https://blockchain.info/address/1EZS...PNF5idPE62e9XY

[Sherlock]

I am getting 5 such emails per day, sadly not all to spam.

Jesus ... in the number of passwords I use and adult sites I visit, I should receive tons of that stuff. but nothing yet.

I am getting more and more bet365 popunders at adult websites. Under current circumstances, it affects my erection worse than accidental click on gay stuff. It is btw all the time the same tracker.

[eenzoo]

I am getting more and more bet365 popunders at adult websites. Under current circumstances, it affects my erection worse than accidental click on gay stuff. It is btw all the time the same tracker.

I'm sorry to hear, but yeah that can be quite disturbing

Especially if we talk about bet365. They screaming compliance, compliance and closing affiliate accounts with regards to compliance and keeping the brand safe and such stuff ... and hundreds of thousands of hits, cleaned with double meta refresh are not suspicious?! They do not put on the pants with the pincers.

[DanHorvat]

I keep getting those emails, and tracked back the password they're using to my old 000webhost account.

A year and a half ago I was hacked for real and the hackers encrypted all the documents and images on my PC, so I had to pay 0.5 BTC ($500 at the time) to get a decryption key. There was no other solution. As everyone knows, that 0.5 BTC was soon worth $10k.

I picked up that virus in a pirate copy of Adobe Acrobat, FWIW. I did some research and it was some Russian hacker that's on CIA's most wanted list. They didn't catch him yet.

One thing I resent is Microsoft Security Essentials (Windows 10), it was on at the time when my PC misteriously slowed down - because the program was encrypting every file on it. MSE just watched and did nothing, yet Windows annoy me with "Do you really want to run this program as administrator" and similar messages that make it seem like they're serious about security. They're not, they haven't got a clue.

Fortunately these new guys just talk a lot and haven't really hacked anybody.

I'll come up with some protocols to save me from future hack attempts (they'll only get better at it). I'll probably get another PC that's off the grid and that will serve as cold storage for all the important stuff. Because this can only get worse and it's not a question of if you'll get hacked but when and what angle will they use for ransom.

[Progger]

A year and a half ago I was hacked for real and the hackers encrypted all the documents and images on my PC, so I had to pay 0.5 BTC ($500 at the time) to get a decryption key. There was no other solution. As everyone knows, that 0.5 BTC was soon worth $10k.

Sounds like Zoldon....the way to take this **** from the system is not so easy, but possible with a live linux system. The encrypter was released,some days after the spread.

MSE is probably not the best software on the market.

[Roulette Zeitung]

Any email with a Bitcoin address like in the starting post is a scam by nature.
It takes less than 2 seconds to identity those losers.
And if I am honest, I have no understanding, if people can be trapped with such a trash.
There is nothing, which is honest, if someone is begging or arguing with his Bitcoin loser address.
Nothing!

Leopold

[casinobonusguy]

Long before the onedrive or cloud I got in habit to have external drive and every night backed up any new or changed files from my system.I still have dual system plus one drive and external drives but understand losing data is never an option.I have gotten so many of these email as high as $6000 to as low as $200 not sure who would actually pay.