Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has received several calls over the past few weeks regarding a scam extorting ‘bitcoin’ from victims based on a threat to expose alleged viewing of pornography sites.
| Note |
| Bitcoin essentially is a digital or virtual currency that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. Bitcoin operates outside of any formal banking structure and generally, transactions cannot be traced. Bitcoin can be exchanged for traditional currencies. |
In one case, which authorities say typifies a majority of the reports, the victim received an email correctly identifying her computer password. The email said that while the victim was on a porn site set up by the suspect, they secretly explored her computer’s contents. The suspect also mentioned using her computer’s camera to record a video of her viewing the porn site and threatened to release it to family and friends on social media. In order to prevent release of the video, the victim was instructed to obtain $2200 in bitcoin within 48 hours.
The victim had never viewed a porn site and knew this was a scam. No money was lost, but she was concerned about an outsider having her password information.
If correct password information is shared by the cyber suspects, they likely obtained it through database breaches involving legitimate commercial websites. It is critical to check your computer immediately for malware and change passwords – especially those used to access bank accounts and other services containing personal information. The emails sent are likely automated, meaning that victims are not specifically targeted, instead suspects are using special programs that draw email addresses, user names and passwords from the stolen data. The extortion letter is then emailed automatically.
According to authorities, this scam has been around for quite a while and has been reported in several countries around the world.