New sextortion scam – They have your password! Cybercriminals are sending victims their own passwords to make them hand over Money – I’ve heard of this happening to a couple of friends now and I’ve seen some reports elsewhere so I thought that I would share it with you. As it does sound really scary!New sextortion scam – They have your password

You get an email with your Name and Password in the Subject line

Boom – Shock set in.

In this phishing scam, the scammers send you your own passwords and make you think that they have filmed you on your own webcam watching porn and goodness knows what else. The thing is you might think – well I’m okay I’ve not watched porn *cough* but the password IS yours, so it could still freak you out when they say if you don’t give them money they will actually forward the video of you on to all of your contacts.

Don’t panic

The E-mail or Text message reads like this:

I know that XXXXXXX is your password. You don’t know me and you’re probably thinking why you are getting this mail, right?Well, I actually placed a malware on the adult video clips (porno) web site and guess what, you visited this website to experience fun (you know what I mean).

When you were watching videos, your web browser started working as a Rdp (Remote control desktop) that has a key logger which gave me access to your display and also web camera. Right after that, my software program collected all of your contacts from fb, as well as mailbox.

After that I gave in more hours than I should have digging into your life and generated a two view video. First part shows the recording you had been watching and 2nd part shows the recording from your web cam (its you doing nasty things).

Honestly, I am willing to forget all information about you and let you get on with your regular life. And my goal is to provide you two options that will make it happen. The two choices to either ignore this letter, or simply pay me $ 3200. Let us understand those two options in more details.

The scammers then give you options!

Option One is to ignore this message. You should know what will happen if you select this option. I will definitely send your video to all of your contacts including members of your family, coworkers, and so forth. It does not help you avoid the humiliation your household will feel when friends and family learn your unpleasant videos from me.

Other Option is to make the payment of $2900 a fair price tag for our little secret – I will delete the video immediately. You continue on with your routine life as if nothing ever occurred.

Now you may be thinking, “I will go to the cops”. Let me tell you, I’ve covered my steps to ensure this mail can’t be traced to me and yes it won’t steer clear of the evidence from destroying your health. I am not trying to break your bank. I just want to be compensated for the time I placed into investigating you. Let’s assume you have chosen to create all of this disappear completely and pay me the confidentiality fee. You’ll make the payment via Bitcoin (if you don’t know how, type “how to buy bitcoins” in search engine)

Required Amount: $2900
Receiving Bitcoin Address: XXXXXXXX

(It is CASE sensitive, so you should copy and paste it carefully)

“Important: You now have one day to make the payment. (I have a special pixel within this email message, and now I know that you have read this e mail). If I do not receive the BitCoins, I will definitely send out your video recording to all of your contacts including close relatives, co-workers, and many others. Nevertheless, if I receive the payment, I’ll destroy the video immediately. If you need evidence, reply with “Yes!” and I will send your video to your 10 friends. It is a non-negotiable offer, therefore do not waste my time and yours by responding to this message.”

So if they don’t have a video of you – but this new sextortion scam – They have your password, how did they get it?

There has been so many data breaches over the last few years, is thought that these are old emails from then – so another reason to always change your passwords often – and have different passwords for each platform or service you sign into.

This is a new type of phishing scam email and I think we will be seeing this a lot more as they find other ways to scam or trick us into giving them money.

What should I do, if I get an email saying they have my password and a video of me?

My advice, right away before anything else – quickly change your passwords on anything that has that password – just in case. It’s worth doing anyway if this is a current password. And always. always always, have Two Factor Authentication

Do not send money – they don’t have a video of you – or your contact list they are just completely guessing. Hoax-slayer explains it here –

Fake Blackmail Sextortion Scam Emails Using Real Passwords

Police Advice

Action Fraud Police say

Don’t be rushed or pressured into making a decision: paying only highlights that you’re vulnerable and that you may be targeted again. The police advise that you do not pay criminals.
Secure it: Change your password immediately and reset it on any other accounts you’ve used the same one for. Always use a strong and separate password. Whenever possible, enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).
Do not email the fraudsters back.
Always update your anti-virus software and operating systems regularly.
Cover your webcam when not in use.
If you have receive one of these emails and paid the fine, report it to your local police force. If you have not paid, report it as a phishing attempt to Action Fraud.

New sextortion scam – They have your password, did they have your password? – have you seen this email, please let us know.

Stumbleupon was one of the first discovery platforms on the internet, its been around for 16 years but StumbleUpon has gone. And I must say although I loved the site, I probably haven’t used to for a few months and I didn’t even have a notion that it was struggling, thinking of closing or morphing into something similar. I have heard that you can = Transfer your StumbleUpon account to Mix, so thought I’d sign up and see how you did that – and what mix is all about.

StumbleUpon has Gone

However, it has been replaced by Mix.com which has the same idea as StumbleUpon to help people find content, but an improved version.

It says you can curate and share the best of the internet – mix learns what you love to show you even more – I like the sound of that. Follow and create collections – does that sound a little bit more like Pinterest to you?

Save what matters to you
Articles, images, videos, music: All your favorite things, all in one place.
Discover your next favorite thing
Go deeper into new topics and explore any interest. Share with your community.
Build your community
Follow interesting users and their collections to stay updated on what they’re reading.

They said you can even transfer your StumbleUpon stuff over to mix – so that’s good!

So let’s see ….. I’ve signed up with my old StumbleUpon account into Mixer – and it knows my Twitter account already even though I didn’t tell it yet, so maybe my StumbleUpon stuff is already there…

Pick topics for your collections

It then asks us to Pick a few things we are into – I think that’s how you started with StumbleUpon.

It then brings up lots of articles in relation to your subject. You can click on any of these and save to a collection that they have named for you or you can name a collection yourself.

On this page at the top you have – For You – Explore – Profile

Explore is more of the same thing but not from your key subjects which you can also simply add to a collection or create your own.

Profile – is where you can see all of your collections.

At first look now it feels like refind – although I don’t see any of my friends yet and I don’t see my old stumbles yet, and I also see no way of sharing from inside the platform, so as yet I’m not very excited about Mix.com

There is a Chrome extension so that you can add posts to your mix that you see while you are outside the platform which is nice and easy

Okay so then on the left there are settings for Mix

Personal settings – this is where you put your bio etc
Notifications – this is where you set up your notifications
Friends – here you can auto follow friends as they join, from Facebook and Twitter which is ticked or connect your Twitter, Facebook and Google accounts.
Chrome extension – again you are asked to get the Chrome extension

Okay so I saw nothing about transferring my Stumble account but in the bottom left there is a help section so I ask there and it says I should have had an email – this is how you would transfer your stumbleupon account to mix from the help files.

Transfer your StumbleUpon account to Mix

How do I transfer my account?

To begin the transfer, click on the link in the invitation email you received.

If you did not receive a Transfer Invite Email before June 30, you cannot transfer your account.

You will be asked to confirm your email address and username for Mix by doing so, you accept the Mix Terms of Service. On the next screen, you will be able to choose what to carry over from your StumbleUpon account. You can choose to import or not import any of the options on this page. If you so choose you can skip this process and simply carry over your username. Once you are done importing your account, you will be asked to choose some topics to get you started and then you’re ready to dive into Mix.

When will my StumbleUpon data be deleted?
All StumbleUpon data will be deleted within 90 days of June 30.

If you have any questions contact us at support@mix.com.

UH OH

The last email I had from StumbleUpon was the 23 June giving me recommended articles ……. nothing about Mix. Nothing about how to Transfer your StumbleUpon account to Mix

So this could be a problem – I am now contacting customer support and I will let you know what happens. Did you get this email?

New and Improved … not sure yet…

Two hours late and nothing yet.

P.S There is also a mobile app!