What is Sextortion?

The term “Sextortion” is rather self-explanatory, aside from the fact that this practice has been in use for a pretty long time. That is a type of email scams that aim at money extortion through the threats of publishing explicit visual content with the victim. To look more authoritative, the scammer may claim to have access to the target’s social media accounts.

Contrary to more classic email phishing scams, the attacker will never ask the victim about an action other than sending a sum of money. The reason for such a generous act is, as the villain assures, its possession over some compromising materials about you. Email text often discloses the way these photos and videos were obtained – from a webcam while you were browsing through adult sites, leaked from the hacked phone, or the like.

All this boils down to a simple demand: send the money or I will leak all these nude videos and pics to the public. Some definitely not exaggerating mates say they will post it from your profile, as they have access to it as well. Though ones who try to look more realistic simply promise to tag your entire friends list on a specific social media.

Are Sextortion Threats Real?

99.5% of the time, they are not. Even though some people can have someone’s nude photos on hand, the number of scam emails exceeds the number of these people by orders of magnitude. And since such graphic materials rarely end up in the hands of a stranger, it will be particularly easy to identify the extortionist. This adds up to the generic message text and absence of any proof – some definite signs of a scam. By the way, let’s have a more detailed look at them.

How to detect a Sextortion Scam Email?

Same as any email scam, sextortion bears on 3 psychological tricks: calling for a shock, forcing the feel of vulnerability and feeling of urgency. This leaves its footprint in the text, and eventually makes it somewhat templated in all the scam cases. Let’s review the most popular of them.

Typical Sextortion Email Patterns in Text

With time, there were dozens and hundreds of different text patterns for extortion emails. Most of them, however, are created with the intention of being suitable to any victim. It would be rather uncomfortable for a scammer to adjust the text whenever they target a new group of people. Thus, utterly generic and abstract text with absolutely no personalization is what you would expect from sextortion scams.

The sense of shock appears as the stranger says it has your nude photos. Moreover, this guy tries to pose as a “professional hacker”. They boasts of having access to all the browsing history, webcams, online wallets and the like. Why would they do nothing about this info – hijacking accounts, stealing all the money from online wallets? The question is rhetorical.

Urgency to the situation appears due to the “deadline” you should pay the ransom before. As the hacker says, any negotiations and stuff are not possible, and failing the payment date will end up with publishing all the materials. Some crooks also say things like “this is not my email so I will stop using it shortly after”. This creates even bigger concerns about the inability to avoid public shame.

Sure enough, the same methods may be used by someone whose threats are real. But they never follow the pattern, at least not that straightforward. This distinguishes a letter written by a real human from a tool of scammers, designed to fit any circumstances.

Check For A Re-Used Crypto Wallet

As sextortion scams are running in “waves”, you are most likely not the only person who got such an email. Frauds often stick to the exact same text, changing only the crypto wallet they ask to send the ransom to. A simple Google search of the wallet may reveal not just one, but several text patterns used in the same scam wave.

Two sextortion emails from 2019 and 2023 using the same text

Two sextortion emails from 2019 and 2023 using the same text

Obviously, when the con actor is real in its threats and is not running this as a business, it will never use someone else’s crypto wallet or the one used in a scam before. Even when a real hacker does something like this (such an occasion happens once in a while) it will never use the same wallet twice. Moreover, “real hackers” rarely opt for Bitcoin as a payment method, preferring cryptos like Monero or DarkCoin. The latter have the anonymizing infrastructure that is so heavily demanded when you are going outlaw.

AI-fueled Sextortion Scams Incoming

All in all, sextortion is a rather old scam that was not really effective over the last few years. People are aware about it, and there is almost no way this is real after all. This is true, but over the last few years, there is a huge risk of sextortion scams being resurfaced with a force yet unseen. Let me explain.

The current AI development is exciting. But what is more mind-boggling is the number of malignant implementations for this potential. In particular, we are talking about their photo editing capabilities. There are quite a few AI services even these days that will edit the clothing out of the picture of a person you’ve uploaded. Combine this ability with sextortion scams and the fact that most people share their normal photos without any doubt – and you receive fuel for a new, unpredictably powerful scam wave.

Scammers who stand behind sextortion emails will finally stop extorting money for nothing. This time, they may get not only a manipulative text, but things to prove their claims with. And, if you ignore the demand, they will post them somewhere. There’s still no reason to believe in their tails about access to all your accounts, but dumping the photos while tagging all your friends list may still be effective.

Sure, it is rather easy to prove the AI origin of images and videos. But the very fact of these images’ existence may throw people into panic. This will eventually force them to pay the ransom – which still does not guarantee that the scammer will not publish these fake photos. And even when you remain calm and ignore all the threats, it may be bothersome to prove that these nude photos of yours are just a hallucination of a vicious neural network.

How to protect yourself from email scams?

Well, that is not an easy question to answer. As I’ve just explained, things are getting complicated, and there is no well-rounded advice for the most modern cases. However, I took my time to think through the possible mitigation options for the majority of situations.

Control sharing your personal email address. While benign services try to keep their customers’ info private, there are enough services that do not care. Some shady forums, torrent tracking sites, websites with cracked software – they will gladly sell databases of their users’ emails to someone. Then, these databases are used to spam people and spread scams, including sextortion. Avoid leaving any personal info in such places, or at least do not use your personal email for authorization purposes.

Keep your head cold. A thing all extortionists rely on is your panic actions upon realization that someone may publish inappropriate graphic content with you online. You, in turn, should not do any emotional acts – that will save you both money and gray hair.

Change all your passwords. This is mostly for good measure, as only a few cases out of thousands of sextortion scams could really boast having your passwords leaked. Though, the very habit of updating your login credentials is a great enhancement to your personal cybersecurity.

Warn your friends, colleagues and relatives about a fake video. By announcing preventively that a provocative video can appear, you minimize the initial shock it may create. After that, all the fake video will do is call friendly laughs, avoiding shame or arguments. Even if the scammer is kidding and there is no graphic material in its possession, even a fake one, this will uplift the awareness of such cases.

The post What is Sextortion? Explanation, Signs & Ways to Avoid appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

Professional Hacker Email Scam Overview

Despite being a distinctive kind of email spam, “Professional Hacker” still has some variations to it. Though, all of them have a text stating nearly the same thing: a hacker got into your computer and gathered a lot of sensitive information. If you do not pay the ransom – all this info will be published. Here are some common patterns the forms of this scam follow all as one.

Worrying Claims At The Very Beginning

The message starts with the subject like “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities”. This serious yet threatening claim may already inflict fear and make the victim believe every word in the message body.

The body is not better either. Commonly, there are claims like “successfully managed to hack your operating system” and “gained full access to your account”. They are nonsense from the technical point of view, but look legitimate for people who are not aware of such details.

Fake Hacker Activities Description

Further in the message body, the hacker says that it was “monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months”. The crook claims it has installed various malware (trojan viruses) to your system. Interestingly enough, the spreading way they say about a lot is “adult sites”. While in the past such pages were really a threat, it is barely a thing these days. It is also unclear why there is so much attention to a single victim. The actions hacker boasts of may be done in a matter of days, if not hours. Thence, it is either about unprofessionalism or stalking.

Claims On Compromised Video Being Recorded

Another typical claim is about the video taken from the webcam. Not a regular one – hacker says about a recording of you being in pretty compromising situations. This is, actually, the culmination point of the scam letter. These rows say about the potential possession of highly compromising materials. In other words, this is what should force a victim to pay. It is particularly hard to prove or disprove this statement, though as the overall email has a lot of questionable takes, this one is not realistic either.

Explanation of Malware Invulnerability

To prove its proficiency, a hacker states that the malware it uses integrates at driver level, which makes it impossible to detect and remove. Well, this part is at least somewhat true – driver-level malware integration is a thing and it is done exactly to make both detection and removal much more complicated. But to perform such a trick, a hacker should either trick you into running the malware with high privileges, or escalate them through an exploit – which is not a trivial task.

Some crooks also mention “hourly updates” (each several hours, daily etc), which is, in turn, just a fiction. There are much less effort-intensive ways to avoid detection, so using such an ineffective trick is either a mark of an unskilled hacker or a liar.

Ransom Demands & Publishing Threats

Obviously, the outro of the scam email – ransom demands. “Professional Hacker” commonly asks for a ransom in Bitcoins, and sets a deadline of 48-72 hours. If the demand is dismissed, the hacker promises to publish all the gathered info and videos on your social media – as it “has full access to your accounts”.

The ransom sum varies depending on unknown factors, but most commonly the ask ranges from $1000 to $2000 in Bitcoin. Some messages do not tell the ransom amount and instead offer to negotiate the sum on the email.

Typical Professional Hacker Scam Email Example

As I said, there could be dozens of different text variations of this scam. Though, they differ just a bit, so I collected the most common ones.

Typical example of a sextortion email

Is “Professional Hacker” Email True?

No, it is just an attempt to make a scared user pay for deleting non-existent compromising materials. Sure, some of the things described in the email may happen. But the overall course of action is not how hackers normally work. Spending more than a month spying on a single victim is a thing in cyberattacks on large companies. However, doing so in attacks on home users is counter-productive.

There are a lot of things in the message that make me conclude it is a scam written by a low-profile scam actor. It may be aware of some typical tactics and practices that cybercriminals use. However, any of their attempts to describe them in detail uncover the complete incompetence of a subject. “Malware uses drivers” “Updating the signatures every four hours” – any tech-savvy guy will laugh his head off listening to such twaddle.

Social Engineering Tactics Used in “Professional Hacker” Email Scam

As you could have possibly supposed, Professional Hacker email scam is based purely on social engineering. There are mistakes in the technical description of a “hack“ that show low technical competence. Nonetheless, the psychological tricks scam actors are trying to use are quite clear and professional. Let’s have a look at each one.

Pretending to be a professional

First paragraph of a scam message starts with a claim about being a professional hacker. Most probably, a victim will not trust it from the start. But it changes as a victim sees details adult sites, trojan viruses and the like. All these tales make the target person believe the hacker who attacked them is really a professional one, and it is not a joke.

The scammers’ hope here is that the target individual don’t know a thing about how hackers operate. And let’s be honest – there are quite a lot of people who don’t. They will surely believe a scary story about month-long spying with an undetectable malware.

Privacy compromise notifications

Once the authority is gained with the tricks I described above, the hacker switches to scaring the victim. The first sprouts of this appear at the very beginning of an email message – in the message subject. Then, the rascal says that it possesses a whole bunch of compromising information – from dialogues in messengers to video from a webcam with the victim watching content on adult sites.

This may look like a silly show, but don’t forget – the victim believes it is a genuine hacker who has sent an email. Thus, it can enforce a genuine fear or even panic, especially when a blind take about compromising messagings or visits to adult sites was dead-on.

Threats of public humiliation & ransom demands

By appealing to the compromising info possessed and the overall access to the victim’s system, a hacker threatens to publish all the info to social media, using the victim’s accounts. Sure enough, a scared user will now be ready to do whatever the hacker asks to avoid this. And the task is quite obvious – a ransom you should pay off in Bitcoins. The scammer specifies the wallet in the message. Even in the cases where the message body does not mention the ransom at all, it still ends up there.

Inflicting urgency

Despite all the places in this message that may scare the victim, the key element that makes it pay is time sensitivity. Hackers inflict urgency of a payment by saying that the deadline for making a payment is 48-72 hours from the moment when it have sent the message. No payment = all your friends on social media will know about your dirty deeds. Well, they would not, but hacker’s role is make you believe that this will happen.

Scan Your System For Malware

Once you suspect that your system has some unwanted items in it, or see scam messages stating so, consider checking your system with a security tool. Despite what these wannabe-hackers say in the email, anti-malware programs are able to counteract spyware, trojan viruses and other malware. Sure enough, not each one can boast of top efficiency – a security program should feature most modern detection mechanisms. GridinSoft Anti-Malware can show you all the profits of such capabilities – consider trying it out.

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What happened to Binance?

On March 27, 2023, Binance was charged by Commodity Futures Trading Commission for consistently violating its regulations for preventing money laundering and terrorism financing. As the note released by CFTC says, Binance employees were guided by the company’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao to ignore the rules set by CFTC. The latter supposes uncovering the real identity of their customer in order to prevent misleading and following laundering. That thesis is partially confirmed by the fact that throughout the entire 2022, no suspicious activity reports were made.

Defendants’ alleged willful evasion of U.S. law is at the core of the Commission’s complaint against Binance. The defendants’ own emails and chats reflect that Binance’s compliance efforts have been a sham and Binance deliberately chose – over and over – to place profits over following the law, — Gretchen Lowe, CFTC’s Enforcement Division Principal Deputy Director

Currently, Binance is just amidst a huge scandal, which, however, does nothing to disrupt the operation flow. Still, the trial is ongoing, and the situation may change in the future. If the evidence possessed by the accusing party is proven true, the platform may have serious consequences.

First and foremost, regulators can ban Binance from the U.S., cutting a significant portion of its money flow. That ban will likely forbid the banks to wire transactions with the organisation. It will be painful, but not impossible to withstand – the US share is not that big. However, if things get worse, US authorities will ask European banks to do the same. Cutting off over 50% of the user base in a single move is deadly for pretty much any company.

What to expect?

The scale of possible scams may easily overwhelm the similar outbreak that happened following the SVB bankruptcy in early March. Hackers were sending emails pretending to be bank representatives or legal agents, offering their help in saving money held in the ceased bank. This time, however, the vast majority of targets are regular folks, who are much less aware of scams. Moreover, people are much more likely to interact with emails they receive – and cybercriminals know that.

There is, however, a difference between the case of SVB and Binance. Bankruptcy means a complete suspension of all operations – in simple words, you cannot get your money back. Ban in a certain country makes it troublesome, but not impossible. Still, it may be less obvious for people who are not so well acquainted with all the procedures. Moreover, folks mostly have no “plan B” for such a situation. That will be the bearing point of crooks.

Malicious alternatives

Nature abhors a vacuum. If Binance is gone, there are a number of other platforms offering hot wallets and easy investments. But aside from well-known names, others will pop up, offering unbelievably good terms. And for sure, it is better to remain incredulous.

The classic scheme here is offering a service to people who escaped from Binance, taking their money and leg it. These “alternatives” will likely be offered in advertisements all over the Internet, as well as on forums. Alternatively, crooks can perform classic email spamming campaigns, targeting the emails from databases related to a breach that happened back in 2019.

Typically, users will be offered bonuses at wire-in, miserable commissions per transaction, or even leverages for trading. Links, wherever they are placed, will lead to a freshly-created website that has small to no information about the service. Instead, the site will blink with numerous offers to create an account and top it up as soon as possible. Once done, you will never see your money back. This fraud may also fill the databases with personal information you share during the registration.

Wireout help offers

This type of scam may be conjoined with the previous one but requires contacting the victim. Crooks reach the victim via email, offering to migrate seamlessly to their platform. This message can also contain convincing statements about the partnership with Binance regarding their customers. Hackers may even impersonate a well-known exchange – to lull the vigilance. However, the link they will provide to proceed leads to the same poorly-made website.

At this point, things are getting more interesting. Instead of just taking your money, fraudsters can also ask the address of a Binance hot wallet and a cold wallet. This, in turn, exposes your identity even more – and may be threatening to your funds’ safety.

Pseudo-Binance mailings

What can be the most classic example of an email scam? Email messages that pretend to be ones from a genuine company. Scams related to SVB bankruptcy were generally of this sort, and now the story may repeat itself. Hackers will pretend to be the company that wants to help with wire out or other operations. Alternatively, if nothing bad happens to Binance, the legend may switch to “insure your account” stuff. This scam may take place in social media as well.

Routinely, you should log into your account by following the link added to a message. But oops – this link leads to a phishing copy of a Binance login page. This ends up with losing access to your account, which is suboptimal even in the case of troubles.

What can I do?

First of all, it is just an attempt to predict upcoming cases. If nothing happens – great; pessimistic predictions are always good when they do not come true. However, the threat of malware and phishing scams on email is as actual as never before. Following basic cybersecurity rules is a go-to advice for all cases.

Be suspicious of all the emails you receive. Check the email addresses, read the message body carefully – they can contain the signs which will uncover the attempt to scam you. Hackers do their best in mimicking the original messaging style of the companies, but cannot repeat all the details. Why do they call me “Dear user” instead of my name? And why does the sender’s email resemble a single-use one registered on a quick email box service? Notice details of this small – and any attempts to scam you will go naught.

Control social media messages. Using accounts that mimic the company one’s crooks can outreach people with relevancy. We are used to sharing a lot of information about ourselves on social networks, thus it is not a tough question to find out if you are using Binance or not. In Twitter, after the recent changes in its administration, it became even easier to counterfeit official accounts. Acting as support managers, they can easily deceive a huge number of people.

Do not trust links on the Internet. Wherever you find them – in emails or in someone’s forum post, they should not be trusted. They may look legitimate, but don’t be haste with typing your credentials or other sensitive data. First, check the URL address: if it contradicts with the contents (i.e. 1281300913.weebly.com and a PayPal login page) – close it immediately. Crooks are extremely good at copying login pages and setting up phishing traps for unsuspecting users.

The post Binance US Ban Scams Incoming: What to Expect? appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

How it works

The Financial assistance department scam usually begins with an email, apparently directed at people in financial difficulty. The email claims to be from the Department of Financial Aid and offers financial assistance or grants. This scam can sometimes take many forms, such as fake tech support, phishing, investment, and government funding scams. In addition, the email may contain official-sounding language. It may even include a reference number or other seemingly legitimate information.

The email prompts the victim to call the phone number to complete the application process. However, the phone number listed is controlled by scammers and often starts with 855 or 833. If you receive an email or call from someone claiming to represent the Department of Financial Aid asking you to contact a different number, be careful and research the issue before taking action. If a victim calls the number, scammers ask for personal and financial information such as social security numbers, bank account information, and credit card information. This is done for identity theft, fraud, or other illegal activities.

Signs that it’s a scam.

These emails are easy to distinguish because they often contain red flags that give away their fraudulent origin:

• The email is sent from an address that does not match the name of the financial aid department.
• The organization’s email address is a P.O. box, such as Gmail or outlook.
  The email represents a specific organization but does not provide any information about the organization.
• The email uses a sense of urgency and encourages the victim to respond quickly.
• The email was sent without the recipient’s consent or request.
• The email offers the recipient pre-approved financial support.
• The email contains grammatical errors.

Genuine financial and government agencies never ask for personal information by phone or email, especially without confirming the identity of the person they are communicating with.

What to do if you receive a fraudulent email

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably already received a scam email from the Financial Aid Department. In that case, you should do the following:

• Do not click links or attachments that the email contains. Doing so may harm your device.
• Do not reply or call back the phone number listed in the email.
  Do not share any personal information with anyone who contacts you unexpectedly.
• Check the information directly with the appropriate organization. You can find their contact information on their official website.
• Mark the email as spam. It will help prevent similar emails from appearing in your inbox.
• Report email scams to the appropriate authorities, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at https://www.ftc.gov/ or the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

If you’ve already responded to a fraudulent email or provided personal information to fraudsters, please contact your bank or credit card company immediately, report suspicious activity, and protect your accounts. You may also consider a credit freeze on your accounts to prevent unauthorized access.

The information described above will help you avoid phishing scams such as the fraudulent “Financial Aid Department” email. But remember, scammers continuously develop new tactics, so you must remain vigilant and secure your personal information.

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Emails have been used professionally by millions of people around the world daily. However, with time, this blessing started to become a threat too. As everything in the world of the internet and technology is vulnerable, so is email as well, especially the email attachments we can see on the majority of emails. The vulnerability of threat that is now faced by emails, has raised a huge concern about email security.

Common Threat Types for Email Security

Before digging into the details of how you can save yourself from the possible dangers of email attachments, you need to know some basic types of malicious email threats that we all are vulnerable to.

1. Ransom: Ransom is one of the most common types of threat and it is delivered via email, most of the time. Through ransom, the data of the victim is hacked and the hacker then demands a proper fee from the victim if they want their data back.
2. Phishing: Phishing is an email threat through which the criminal sends in a link or attachment that requires login details and then that information is used for malicious purposes. Such emails are usually personified as normal individuals or companies that seem trustworthy and a lot of people simply open the mail and go on with signing up too.
3. Spam: Although various ways have been created for filtering out unwanted spam messages, the challenge of spam seems to be never-ending. Ordinary spam is nothing but nonsense but a lot of spam is capable of delivering malware too.

Email Security Tactics Every User Should Know

The above-mentioned dangers of email attachments are just the most common ones that people face on a daily routine basis. However, there is a long list of ways through which your emails can be carrying malware and other dangers like ransom, etc.

Anyways, to help you stay safe and ensure email security, we have listed together some helpful email security tactics for you all. These will help you identify danger and dump it before getting your hands deep into the issue. Let’s dig into these!

1. CHECK THE SENDER

People who run businesses, usually receive emails daily from different people. They need to open and check it anyhow. However, while a phishing scam takes place, the name of the sender usually resembles a name that you might know. Even if it does not resemble, an entrepreneur has to open it anyway. You might think that there is no way out of the mess here, but there is. You need to check the sender’s email address. Very odd emails show that the mail is a scam. Also, you don’t have to open up every email. If you are not responding and it is a very important email, the company might ring you up. If you feel that the email is a scam; you better go with your gut instinct.

2.THE MESSAGE INSIDE THE EMAIL

A lot of times, you know the sender and you have been waiting for an email. Sometimes, you just go with the flow and decide to open the email and check what is inside. But before you click on the attachment and decide to read through whatever is mentioned inside, there are some things that you can see to make sure that you are not digging your fingers in danger. You should check the following things to ensure your email security:

• The email subject line holds a lot of importance. If there is no email subject line, you probably don’t want to go into it. If the email says “invoice” make sure that you check your online buying history. Have you ordered anything recently? If yes, you can go on with checking the email and email attachments. However, if you have not ordered anything, you need to make sure that you don’t open the mail and mark it as trash right away.
• Email messages which lack proper details are definitively phishing emails. People who great email with “HI” usually are also scams. If the email has no company details mentioned or a proper introduction of what the email is about, you must not consider it.

3. DIGITAL SIGNATURE EMAIL

People who communicate on corporate levels need to check for digital signatures in the email. If you think that the email you have received, is from a company, then before opening the attachments, look for the company’s digital signature at the end of the mail. If the mail is through Microsoft Outlook, a red ribbon is seen in the message which indicates that it has been sent by a company.

4. CHECK THE EMAIL LINKS

Once you have verified everything inside the mail, you can open the link and check it. By now, if everything has been okay and you have a digital signature, a proper subject line, and the company’s logo mentioned too, it means that you are good to go and there is no scam involved. But you never do know; so it is important to check the link too. Hover your mouse on the attachment and you will see the destination address. If the destination address is leading you toward anything suspicious then it simply indicates that the link contains a virus ransom or any sort of scam. It is better that you trash the mail right away and do not open the link.

Conclusion

Emails have certainly made life easier and quicker. It has revolutionized the way business is done and over time, it has become a gateway towards zillions of opportunities. However, with the advancements, it has also grown vulnerable to scams and other threats, making email security a top priority for individuals and businesses alike. By using these simple email security tips that have been mentioned above, you can ensure security for yourself and your business data. Make sure that you check the little details and stay safe. All it takes is a minute or two and you will be able to save yourself from danger.

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