Fake Bomb Threat Emails Demanding Bitcoins Sparked Chaos Across US, Canada

"Pay $20,000 worth of bitcoin, or a bomb will detonate in your building" A massive number of businesses, schools, government offices and individuals across the US, New Zealand and Canada on Thursday received bomb threats via emails that caused nationwide chaos, forcing widespread evacuations and...

Bitcoin Bomb Scare Associated with Sextortion Scammers

This blog was written by Jaeson Schultz. Organizations across the country are on edge today after a flurry of phony bomb threats hit several public entities Thursday, such as universities, schools and news outlets, among others. The attackers distributed malicious emails claiming to have placed...

Sextortion Emails Force Payment via GandCrab Ransomware

An ongoing sextortion campaign targeting thousands around the United States infects victims with the GandCrab ransomware and demands $500 to decrypt their systems. Sextortion emails typically ask for money in order to keep silent about compromising adult websites that they supposedly looked at. B...

U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars

A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried out by the...

Beers with Talos Ep. #41: Sex, money and malware

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. 41 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Ep. 41 show notes: Recorded Nov. 9, 2018 — We tried to make this episode last week, but thanks to some technical difficulties, we...

Anatomy of a sextortion scam

This blog was written by Jaeson Schultz. Since this July, attackers are increasingly spreading sextortion-type attacks across the internet. Cisco Talos has been investigating these campaigns over the past few months. In many cases the spammers harvested email addresses and passwords from a public...

A week in security (October 22 – 28)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we took a look at some new Mac malware, gave you a roundup of 2018 exploit kits, and dispensed some advice on sextortion scams. We also looked at the Cathay Pacific breach, groaned at the revival of an old browser trick, and explained how voting machines and...

Sextortion emails: They’re probably not watching you

Back in July, Krebs on Security reported on a rather novel scam, where the threat actor would use credentials from old data dumps to suggest that they had directly hacked the victim and obtained the victim's presumably sensitive browser history. Stolen credentials aside, sex-based extortion scams...

Don’t Fall for Webcam Blackmail: Here’s How to Protect Yourself

By Waqas NordVPN Tips on How to Avoid Sextortion Scammers Who Claim to Have a Video of You on Adult Sites. Authorities and cybersecurity experts have issued a fresh warning about the so-called sextortion scam that is making a comeback with new variations. Webcam porn scams have been on the rise f...

Who’s Behind the Screencam Extortion Scam?

The sextortion email scam last month that invoked a real password used by each recipient and threatened to release embarrassing Webcam videos almost certainly was not the work of one criminal or even one group of criminals. Rather, it's likely that additional spammers and scammers piled on with...

New sextortion scheme uses victims’ real password for blackmailing

By Carolina The Sextortion Campaign involves Passwords Stolen from Old Data Breaches. Internet users need to be wary of a new phishing scam that is actually a sextortion scheme, which utilizes old passwords of users and blackmails them for watching pornography. The scammers claim to have recorded...

A week in security (July 9 – July 15)

Last week, we talked about domestic abuse fuelled by IoT, doing threat intel programs right, blocking ICO fraud, and man-in-the-middle attacks. We also explained why we block shady ad blockers and provided tips to online shoppers for Prime Day. Other news: Reports revealed that low-end Android...

Reasonably Clever Extortion E-mail Based on Password Theft

Imagine you've gotten your hands on a file of e-mail addresses and passwords. You want to monetize it, but the site it's for isn't very valuable. How do you use it? You convince the owners of the password to send you money. I recently saw a spam e-mail that ties the password to a porn site. The...

Sextortionists Shift Scare Tactics to Include Legit Passwords

A fresh take on the classic sextortion scam is making the rounds, with several reports confirming a new wrinkle in approach: The inclusion of a legitimate password in the email for the campaign. Multiple end users have received scam email messages from actors claiming to have taken over the...

Sextortion Scam Uses Recipient’s Hacked Passwords

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 webcam to record a video of you while you were watching porn. The missive threatens to release th...

FBI arrested 19-Year-old Hacker for Sextortion; allegedly Hacked into Miss Teen USA's Webcam

A College 19-year-old college student and Hacker from Temecula, California has been arrested for hacking the webcams of Miss Teen USA 'Cassidy Wolf' and other women to extort nude photos and videos from them. Earlier this year Cassidy Wolf received an anonymous email in which the sender claimed t...

FBI Busts Hacker who blackmails 350 women for stripping on camera

The FBI Tuesday announced the arrest of Karen 'Gary' Kazaryan, a 27-year old man, who is said to have blackmailed more than 350 women after convincing them to strip off in front of their webcams has been arrested in the US. He was arrested in Glendale, California on Tuesday after being indicted o...