Help on this one

mollymaloney

Got this email this morning--- [can't recall watching any porn video on the internet-- or anywhere]. Anyone be able to tell me what's the story here.

miguel.pina@juntadeandalucia.es
I guess you’re wondering why you’re receiving this email right?

It would be highly beneficial to your privacy if you didn’t ignore it.

I have placed a Malware on an adult website (…P…0…r…n site) and as you visited and watched the video your device has been affected, placing a spyware on your machine. Which has recorded you both with webcam and screen capture while you had your “fun Time” allowing me to see exactly what you see.

This has also affected your smartphone via an expl0it. So do not think for one minute you can circumvent this by reinstalling your OS. You have already been recorded.

After that my malwares collected all your messengers, emails and social networks contacts.

I guess this isn’t good news right?
But don’t worry too much, there’s a way we can fix this privacy issue. All i require is a Bitcoin payment of £1400 which I think is a fair price considering the circumstances.

The address to make the payment is: 1AG4wHYikz4WrztS1g6HbuCcP95kckcRip

If you don’t understand bitcoin, go on YouTube and search for “how to buy bitcoin” or google for “local bitcoins”, it’s pretty easy to do it.

You have only 48 hours after reading this e-mail to send payment (Be warned I know when you have opened and read this email, i have placed a pixel image inside it. Which enables me to know when you have opened the messaged on exactly what day and time)

If you decide to ignore this email, I will have no choice but to forward the video to all the collected contacts you have on your email account, as well as post on your social media accounts, and send as a personal message to all Facebook contacts. and of course make the video publicly available on internet, via YouTube and adult websites. considering your reputation, I highly doubt you want to be exposed to your family/friends/coworkers during this current time.

You can actually go to the police, but these people will not likely do anything, the most significant stuff they can do is lock my wallet and you will deprive other people from the opportunity to pay me. So think twice before doing foolish things.

If I receive payment all the material will be destroyed and you will never hear from me again. If I do not get my funds for virtually any reason, such as the inability to send cash to a blacklisted wallet – your reputation is going to be wrecked. So make it fast.

Remember here is my Bitcoin account transfer address - 1AG4wHYikz4WrztS1g6HbuCcP95kckcRip

Do not try to make contact with me because am using a victim email that was hacked and exposed. Only reply to notify me you have made payment or you have questions about making payment then click reply.

If you don't believe and want proof just reply to this email with “PROOF” and I will send your video to 5 of your contacts via email, and post on your Facebook wall. In which you will be able to remove it once, not forever.

OUTDOORLASS

Heard about this scam on Joe Duffy and other media outlets few weeks ago. Seemingly, nothing to worry about. Ignore and reset
all passwords. Some people who never viewed porn in their lives received the email.

Keyzer

Honest question, give an honest answer:

When was the last time you visited a porn site on either your phone or laptop/desktop?

mollymaloney

OUTDOORLASS wrote: »

Heard about this scam on Joe Duffy and other media outlets few weeks ago. Seemingly, nothing to worry about. Ignore and reset
all passwords. Some people who never viewed porn in their lives received the email.

Thanks a mill--- I was a bit concerned--

neonman

Its a scam...reply "PROOF" for the laugh.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/email-scam-pornography-sextortion-a8463196.html

Plenty of examples on the internet of this type of scam.

Keyzer

Quick search on the email address in google brings back some results.

Looks like Miguel is a real person (although the account could have been compromised) - looks like he is a director in a Regional Agricultural Office based in Cantillana, Seville.

There is a telephone number for the person too and a generic e-mail address.

mollymaloney

Keyzer wrote: »

Honest question, give an honest answer:

When was the last time you visited a porn site on either your phone or laptop/desktop?

Only use my phone to make/ take a call. On my laptop, it's mostly; donedeal, adverts.ie, country music on youtube-- [all clean harmless fun]. Lately I subscribed to a singles dating site, but cancelled when I saw the rip off for what it was. The nearest to a porn site that I would have visited, would be "tvchix" which i check in on maybe once a day. Outside of maybe coming on something unintentionally on youtube, I wouldn't be deliberately searching out porn sites.

OUTDOORLASS

Conor Pope, journalist in the Irish Times, and much seen on the telly etc, got it, and made much mirth of it. He had some articles
on it, and he was interviewed a few times about it. If you could find the pod cast of Joe Duffy, it had people ringing in that had
got it, and people ringing in explaining how it works. But the main point was to ignore it.

OUTDOORLASS

If you had or had.nt visited porn sites was irrelevant. The scammer was using the possible shame effect to try to extract money.

Keyzer

mollymaloney wrote: »

Only use my phone to make/ take a call. On my laptop, it's mostly; donedeal, adverts.ie, country music on youtube-- [all clean harmless fun]. Lately I subscribed to a singles dating site, but cancelled when I saw the rip off for what it was. The nearest to a porn site that I would have visited, would be "tvchix" which i check in on maybe once a day. Outside of maybe coming on something unintentionally on youtube, I wouldn't be deliberately searching out porn sites.

Then you have nothing to worry about.

I'm half tempted to ring the number listed to see what happens - I'm a curious cat.

gozunda

Keyzer wrote: »

Quick search on the email address in google brings back some results.

Looks like Miguel is a real person (although the account could have been compromised) - looks like he is a director in a Regional Agricultural Office based in Cantillana, Seville.

There is a telephone number for the person too and a generic e-mail address.

Reply back saying that you will contacting his employers regarding illegal use of company email and attempted extortion.

There is a very good anti scam website which has details on how to stop this type of stuff in its tracks.

Keyzer

I e-mailed him, will let you know if I get a response.

edit 1: initial e-mail delivery failed.

edit 2: follow up e-mail delivery failed.

edit 3: sent an email to every email address I could find on the contact site - all failed.

Looks like the domain can't be found anymore.

Blowfish

Keyzer wrote: »

I e-mailed him, will let you know if I get a response.

edit 1: initial e-mail delivery failed.

edit 2: follow up e-mail delivery failed.

edit 3: sent an email to every email address I could find on the contact site - all failed.

Looks like the domain can't be found anymore.

Replying is pointless. The 'from' address displayed is usually faked.

KoolKid

An old one. I've got lots of them. They are often accompanied by an old password you might have used on a site that was hacked.
Delete and forget.

Keyzer

Blowfish wrote: »

Replying is pointless. The 'from' address displayed is usually faked.

In this case, I don't think it was.

Linked back to a civil servant in Seville.

Unless the site which listed the addresses was a hoax also.

Blowfish

Keyzer wrote: »

In this case, I don't think it was.

Linked back to a civil servant in Seville.

Unless the site which listed the addresses was a hoax also.

When they fake it, they set it to be a legitimate email address that's been scraped off a website somewhere as legitimate addresses are more likely to make it through spam filters than random garbage.

If you google it, you can find the PDF they've scraped this one from. The civil servant him/herself will have no idea that their email was used for this and bears no responsibility for it.

It's easy enough to confirm it's fake by checking the path it came through via the headers.

mollymaloney

Wasn't life a lot simpler when we took pen to paper and wrote; "Dear Auntie Bridie, I hope you are well etc- etc". At least when the reply came back 2 weeks later, you could open it without fear of spyware/ malware/ spam or a Trojan horse wouldn't leap out of the envelope. A telegram was used if a message needed to be sent in a hurry and as these were charged for according to the number of words plus a standard fee, --- that took care of trolls---.

Thanks everyone for the reassurance