Blackmail Scam

[Cathar Tours]

Thought I would give you guys a heads up on a new scam going round.

You may get an email from an "international hacker" who claims to have access to your computer and has copied off sensitive information. To verify he has done this he will tell you, in the email, the password of your email address. This is hit and miss but is based on the most common type of passwords people use and one of them may well be your date of birth in numbers.

The blackmail bit is that they will publish all this information on any form of social media platform you are a member of along with some links to several porn sites. They will also forward this to anybody you have listed in your contacts, family, friends etc.

To stop this from happening you need to send them $700 to a bitcoin address which is.

1Lughwk11SAsz54wZJ3bpGbNqGfVanMWzk

The email will appear to come from your own email address but of course it doesn't. If you know how to look at the "header" code in the email you will find it comes from an address in Vietnam.

Personally I use a random password generator that uses number, letters and symbols in upper and lower case then SMS them to my phone which is what were told to do by our computer department because we will never remember them as they are to complicated.

Don't assume people won't fall for this because you can track the bitcoin account number. You don't know who owns it but you can see how much is in it and activity on the account. Since it opened yesterday there is quite a bit of money in it and it seems to be getting more and more by the hour.

[NormanH]

I haven't had this but I have just had 2 'Undelivered mail returned to sender' messages...and they refer to mails from my address that I didn't sent with Chinese or Asian letters in the messages.

I wonder if this is connected?

[nomoss]

[quote user="NormanH"]

I haven't had this but I have just had 2 'Undelivered mail returned to sender' messages...and they refer to mails from my address that I didn't sent with Chinese or Asian letters in the messages.

I wonder if this is connected?

[/quote]

I get those fairly regularly.

I just delete them, then delete the "Deleted items" folder they go into.

So far nothing bad seems to have happened - apart from being accused of being a bigoted racist by some f***wit who runs a dodgy real estate agency[:D]

[Cathar Tours]

I doubt it. More like somebody you know has been hacked, they had your contact details on their computer (along with others) and they have "spoofed" it. That means they have made it look like it came from you but it didn't.

Unfortunately if the recipient "bounces" your email it will send it to whatever email address that is entered into the "return" or "sent from" field. The secret of where it actually comes from is in what is called the "header" of the email, something you don't normally see, its hidden from view. In there will be the actual IP address of who sent it.

For instance the emails I am talking about come from

[14.250.70.127] (port=17952 helo=static.vnpt.vn) by s1010.msn.net with esmtp (Exim 4.91) (envelope-from fred.bloggs@msn.com>]

The "envelope" bit means if you return or bounce the email it won't go to the IP address 14.250.70.127 (which is who really sent it) but to the address inside the "envelope-from" tag which is fred.blogs@msn.com.

I appreciate it's a bit technical.

If your using MS Outlook you can right click on the email name in your inbox and select "Message Options" which opens a box of which the bottom part shows the email header. Other email clients with have something similar. This is useful to find out if the email your bank sent you really came from your bank and it's the information the police will want if your being scammed.

[Judith]

On my MAC I just click on the little arrow to the right of the senders name, et voila, the real sender is revealed.  I do that with any dodgy email I get, always instructive, and yes - binned immediately.  So far, so good!

[Cathar Tours]

Nice to know PC's and MAC's are much the same then.

It would seem that these emails come as a result of the recent hacking of some 50M Facebook accounts. Thankfully whilst I have an account I never use it other than to read family posts and I never post on it.

[Gfplux]

I have had a few in the last few month. I just pop them in my trash bin. Goodbye.

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="Cathar Tours"]Nice to know PC's and MAC's are much the same then.

It would seem that these emails come as a result of the recent hacking of some 50M Facebook accounts. Thankfully whilst I have an account I never use it other than to read family posts and I never post on it.[/quote]

How does not posting change your ability to have had your FB account hacked. Having the account is enough.

[Cathar Tours]

Wow three months to the day to spot that one. At least you did whilst it slipped by the rest so well done.