A cyber extortionist acts to be a US State Police detective
and promises to delete child porn evidence for $2,000 in Bitcoins including a
phone number which could be used to contact the scammer.
“Sextortion” emails have become quite common where the sender
cites that the recipient’s computer has been hacked with the recording of them
while on the adult sites.
On the other hand extortionists pretend to be hitmen and
asking for money to call off the hit, bomb threats and tarnishing website’s
reputation.
The aforementioned extortionist accuses the victim of child
pornography and that the evidence could be deleted if they pay the sender
$2,000 in Bitcoins.
Florida, Minnesota, Georgia, Tennessee, California and New
York are a few of the states where the victims mentioned that the mails they
got were from.
Per sources, the email sent by the extortionists pretending
to be from the Tennessee State Police included the following phrases:
· “Do not
ignore the important warning”
· “I work
in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, detective branch Crime Prevention with
child abuse.”
· “You
uploaded video child-porno to websites”
· “not
possible to prove you didnt this”
· “I
retire in next month and want to earns some money for self”
· “Pay me
to Bitcoin wallet”
· “This
is anonymous money I want 2000$”
· “Send
transfer to my wallet”
· “My
temporary phone to contact”
· “After
receiving payments, I delete All materials”
· “If you
don’t pay me, I sending materials to The Tennessee Crime Laboratory.”
All the emails happen to be the same, the same Bitcoin
address 17isAHrP2cZSY8vpJrTs8g4MHc1FDXvAMu
but
just the state’s name different.
The attacker(s) is/are using a data breach dump which
contains both email and home address so that the state in the email could be
matched up with the target’s state of residence.
Extortion scams don’t usually contain the scammers contact number
and matching the state of residence with that in the email is surely a nice touch
there.
But whenever an email turns up where the sender asks for
money it’s obviously to be aborted.
