This is long, but worth your time, in my humble opinion. Feel free to pass it on!
A while ago, I started receiving an inordinate amount of spam email. While I wondered a bit about it, I didn’t dwell on it, given I’d had the email address for nearly 25 years and figured had just been around so long that it had made its way to spammer lists via someone’s careless mass forwarding of an email (a whole different topic). A couple of days ago, I received a really crafty email that was both very nefarious and in a way, educational, though the sender certainly didn’t intend the latter.
The email was very lengthy, but in short, it said that the sender had infected my computer and had been spying on me. It made allegations that I had been watching porn and had recorded me “pleasing myself”. The sender went on to say that if I sent a sum in bitcoin to a specified bitcoin wallet, they would delete the video, otherwise they would post it on line and “ruin my reputation”. The email was well written, and contained all kinds of explanations about how they were untraceable. They even included instructions on how to set a bitcoin account and transfer the funds. The email went on to state that the sender would know when I had read the email and would start a 48 hour count down from that moment. If payment wasn’t received, the video would go viral. The kicker was the email not only had my email address listed (many spam emails are sent via mass methods that use a shotgun approach to target massive addresses, many of which aren’t even valid) and most intimidating, one of my actual passwords! Oh my!
Well, maybe not “Oh my”. Over the past few years, there have been several data breaches reported, and I have been included in a couple of them. I use many passwords, which are dependent upon how valuable I consider my content on a particular site. For example, many forums that require registration for participation, but that I only go to for one time information receive a short, uninspired password of 6 letters with no numbers or characters. Banking websites on the other hand get passwords much longer in length with a mixture of letters, numbers, symbols and capitalization. In this case, the “password” they listed was my old 6 letter standby. A give away was the portion of the email that had my password listed was far wider than my password was, indicating it was a “fill in the blank” field of a pre-made form letter. The email went on to warn me that changing my password would do no good, since they had hacked my system and were able to record any changes I made. Yeah, right. I run multiple virus and malware programs on my computer, and while a hacker could overcome one, it’s highly unlikely they could defeat them all. Nor was this particular password ever a part of my security system.
Regardless, the one thing this email didn’t count on is I access the web via a desktop computer that has no camera, and never has. Therefore their claim was patently a lie. They could have claimed they had video of me robbing the poor box at St. Michael’s or plotting to blow up a government building. Insidiously, they chose an activity that no doubt many people probably are guilty of doing – if guilt is a proper term.
So here are the points of this post:
And if you feel the need to ease your guilt about something, feel free to send me the money instead. I’ll be happy to take your secret to the grave.
A while ago, I started receiving an inordinate amount of spam email. While I wondered a bit about it, I didn’t dwell on it, given I’d had the email address for nearly 25 years and figured had just been around so long that it had made its way to spammer lists via someone’s careless mass forwarding of an email (a whole different topic). A couple of days ago, I received a really crafty email that was both very nefarious and in a way, educational, though the sender certainly didn’t intend the latter.
The email was very lengthy, but in short, it said that the sender had infected my computer and had been spying on me. It made allegations that I had been watching porn and had recorded me “pleasing myself”. The sender went on to say that if I sent a sum in bitcoin to a specified bitcoin wallet, they would delete the video, otherwise they would post it on line and “ruin my reputation”. The email was well written, and contained all kinds of explanations about how they were untraceable. They even included instructions on how to set a bitcoin account and transfer the funds. The email went on to state that the sender would know when I had read the email and would start a 48 hour count down from that moment. If payment wasn’t received, the video would go viral. The kicker was the email not only had my email address listed (many spam emails are sent via mass methods that use a shotgun approach to target massive addresses, many of which aren’t even valid) and most intimidating, one of my actual passwords! Oh my!
Well, maybe not “Oh my”. Over the past few years, there have been several data breaches reported, and I have been included in a couple of them. I use many passwords, which are dependent upon how valuable I consider my content on a particular site. For example, many forums that require registration for participation, but that I only go to for one time information receive a short, uninspired password of 6 letters with no numbers or characters. Banking websites on the other hand get passwords much longer in length with a mixture of letters, numbers, symbols and capitalization. In this case, the “password” they listed was my old 6 letter standby. A give away was the portion of the email that had my password listed was far wider than my password was, indicating it was a “fill in the blank” field of a pre-made form letter. The email went on to warn me that changing my password would do no good, since they had hacked my system and were able to record any changes I made. Yeah, right. I run multiple virus and malware programs on my computer, and while a hacker could overcome one, it’s highly unlikely they could defeat them all. Nor was this particular password ever a part of my security system.
Regardless, the one thing this email didn’t count on is I access the web via a desktop computer that has no camera, and never has. Therefore their claim was patently a lie. They could have claimed they had video of me robbing the poor box at St. Michael’s or plotting to blow up a government building. Insidiously, they chose an activity that no doubt many people probably are guilty of doing – if guilt is a proper term.
So here are the points of this post:
- Data breaches are a fact of life. Use multiple passwords that are hack resistant. Do not use the same password for multiple accounts, especially financial accounts!
- Most scammers are unsophisticated, but not all! Still, be very wary. In this case, the scammer promised that if I sent payment, they would ‘disappear and I would never hear from them again”. Fat chance of that! Regardless, it was a scam. They are operating under the assumption that their net (the open field around my password shows I was not the only person to receive this email) will catch some fish, and I have no doubt the will. Don’t be one of those fish!
- Be vigilant about your privacy! There are software programs and hacks that can turn on the camera on a cell phone and/or computer. Operate under the assumption yours may be hacked and you will never have to worry about it.
And if you feel the need to ease your guilt about something, feel free to send me the money instead. I’ll be happy to take your secret to the grave.
