Hi Everone,
Following on with our threads, here on Community, around various scam doing the rounds, I have been alerted that we are seeing a rise in reports of sextortion email scams.
These types of scam are particularly nasty and often cause fear and distress in victims. Typically, these scams involve sending an email to a potential victim and stating that the scammer has gained access to your computer and has obtained intimate footage of the victim or details of the victim accessing adult content on the internet. The scammer goes on to threaten that if you don't pay a ransom, usually in Bitcoin, then the scammer is going to send details to all your contacts.
Sometimes, the scammer will include confirmation of a password you may have set for an online account, or it might look like the email has come from your own email address. This can often trick people into paying a ransom because the scammer can quote a genuine password.
What to do if you receive such an email?
- Don't respond or make any payments to the scammer
- Immediately change the password of any online account that you think may have been breached. If you recognise the password that the scammer has confirmed then make sure to change this ASAP
- Forward the email to phishing@bt.com
- Mark the email as 'Spam
There is a lot more information available about these scams, a good resource to learn more is over on Action Frauds website, please see this article, in particular, Action fraud: sextortion scam advise
Stay safe everyone
