07/17/2018
Heads up, some of you are seeing this now or have seen this already, be careful!
Massive Sextortion Phishing Campaign Uses Recipient's Hacked Passwords
Krebs on Security has posted a new item: "Here's a clever new twist on an old email scam that could serve to make the con far more believable. The message purports to have been sent from a hacker who's compromised your computer and used your we**am to record a video of you while you were watching p**n. The missive threatens to release the video to all your contacts unless you pay a Bitcoin ransom.
The new twist? The email now references a real password previously tied to the recipient's email address.
KrebsOnSecurity heard from three different readers who received a similar email in the past 72 hours. In every case, the recipients said the password referenced in the email’s opening sentence was in fact a password they had previously used at an account online that was tied to their email address.
However, all three recipients said the password was close to ten years old, and that none of the passwords cited in the sextortion email they received had been used anytime on their current computers.
Krebs commented: "I suspect that as this scam gets refined even more, perpetrators will begin using more recent and relevant passwords — and perhaps other personal data that can be found online — to convince people that the hacking threat is real."
