An email extortion scam is doing rounds on many Irish mailboxes, according to the latest report from ESET Ireland.
In the e-mail, the scammer claims to possess a fictitious recording of the victim watching child pornography. And in exchange for not leaking the video to the public, the crook asks for payments of £5,000 ~ $6253 worth of Bitcoins.
What is Email Sextortion?
This appears to be a classic case of email sextortion where crooks try to dupe users into believing that they possess videos of victims watching adult content. And in return, the scammers ask for heavy lumps of money.
In many instances, the emails include authentic content such as victims passwords, and usernames in order to make the extortion claim appear more believable. However, the primary task in the sent emails is to weaponize victims fear of being exposed.
Sextortion campaign in Ireland
In the case of Ireland, the crooks start off with subject lines such as “I know you are a pedophile”, and “What the **** are you doing, pedophile?”. This kind of language generates stimuli in the victims out of fear into opening up the email.
The body of the email again includes a similar kind of intimidating language. Things like, “I was observing you for quite some time” and “I know you are a wealthy person and that you do care about your reputation”.
What can you do?
Extortion emails are on a high rise. Therefore, if you receive any kind of email claiming that the sender holds a questionable video of you, we ask you to not believe them and simply mark the email as spam.
Also, crooks might try to claim that the attached file is a private video of yours. We recommend you not to fall for it since the attachment might contain virus or spyware that might actually take over the PC camera.
Also Read: Google Maps Finds Body Of Man Who Disappeared 22 Years Ago