Sextortion criminals may have your passwords, but you needn't despair. Understand

Emails malicious are sent every day and with varied contents. But in recent days, a format has become popular: criminals are discovering their Passwords to engage in sexual blackmail. This practice is also known as sextortion, which is when a person blackmails and threatens to release their compromising photos. 

Even though it's something serious, considering that people had access to your passwords, you don't need to panic. Scammers often don't have your photos and videos. In other words, they use this mechanism (blackmail) simply to take money from the victim.

How works

This type of scam always starts with catchphrases (subject) such as: “Your computer has been hacked!”, “I can also post on your social networks”, “You will regret it!”, “Your computer has been hacked”, or similar matters. Recently, one of these emails from sextortion arrived at the Naked Security portal and shows how the people behind this practice work.

“I know, [PASSWORD] is your password. You don't know me and you're probably wondering why you're getting this email, correct? Well, I believe $2900 is a reasonable price for our little secret. You will pay via Bitcoin (if you don't know this, search “how to buy bitcoin” on Google)”.

Email sent by the attacker.

Some of these sexual scams content vary, meaning the criminal will not always use the same text for all victims. And many people end up falling for the conversation, without even making a inquiry before. 

Last week, Northern Ireland was hit by sextortion. More specifically, four cities (Antrim, Down, Tyrone and Derry) have seen case numbers explode. Local police recorded at least 40 reports involving cyber criminals threatening people in the region.

According to the victims' accounts, the scammers said they have compromising photos and footage of them accessing pornographic websites. They even say they can send all the content to families. In other emails, criminals threaten to publish the images. The entire action can be stopped if the victim agrees to pay a sum. In cases recorded in Northern Ireland, they asked for around £2.000.

In Brazil, cases were confirmed last December in Jundaí, in the interior of São Paulo. The hacker reported that she had been watching the person for months and revealed that the victim's computer had been infected with malware from an adult website she had visited. In an investigation, it was possible to notice that a Brazilian invader translated the text from English to Portuguese and, randomly, he sent the threats to people in the region.

In another case in the same period, the hacker made the same frequent threats in sextortion and required the victim to buy six prepaid cards from the company Acesso with recharge of R$50 each (R$300 in total).

With many young people on the internet due to the pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19), authorities urge parents to keep an eye on their children.

“It is really important for parents and guardians to know what their loved ones are doing online, who their children are engaging with and what websites they are visiting.”

warned Simon Walls, Chief Superintendent of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

How do they find your passwords?

The most likely explanation is that criminals of sextortion take advantage of the classic failures of privacy on other platforms to steal data and start threats. In 2012, millions of user passwords from the LinkedIn and they began to be traded on the dark web. But it's not just with the professional social network. Other platforms are always registering controversies with user data leakage.

In 2016, an attack gained access to data from ten thousand users of the Facebook. information of almost 33 million people using the Twitter were leaked and sold on the internet in June 2016. Still in the same year, the Yahoo! confirmed an attack, who had access to at least 500 million of user data. It is worth noting that the discovery of the leak often takes years.

the people who practice sextortion apply social engineering: they know that most of us use the same password for multiple platforms. Soon, they start to test the leaked password on other social networks or sell it to a person in order to access their data. 

As much as the criminal presents his old password in the e-mail, this can be advantageous for him, as the victim can be scared and follow what he says. 

According to Australian Cyber ​​Security Center, a country where it also recorded an increase in the number of cases now in April, attackers often do not have access to content.

“The information in the email is obtained from the internet itself from previously known data breaches.”

explained the Australian Cyber ​​Security Center.

Cyber ​​fraud company Kroll explains that among email scams, 20 to 35% of the people involved have no relation to what is reported by the attackers. So when you get these messages, you just need to delete them. What if the person presents their passwords? See below what you should do.

What to do if you fall into sextortion on the internet

Experts explain that the first thing to do is not to despair. After all, an email with an old password doesn't mean your account has been hacked. Check out the main tips below:

• As soon as you receive the contact of the scammer from sextortion, do not reply to the email, even if it has your password;
• If the password he put in the email really is your current one, log into your accounts (with the password he has access to) and make the change immediately;
• Make sure you have antivirus installed on your computer and be sure to update it often;
• There is also an online platform where you can see if the email address is involved in any recent leaks. On Have I Been Pwned, you only need to enter your email and the site will search for possible violations;
• We know it's difficult, but the recommended thing is to always use a different password for each platform you use (different passwords for: email, Facebook, Instagram and other accounts). In order not to get lost with so many created credentials, use password managers. 

Finally, another important action to be taken is enable two-step authentication (or two-factor authentication) on your accounts. It is available on most messaging and social networking apps. Here's how to enable this additional layer of security on top online services:

Every time you get a suspicious email, be sure to check where it came from. Check for links who may have viruses and search the Google about the possible company or person, is one of the recommended procedures to avoid falling into scams. And you, reader, have you already received similar emails? Then share it with us here in the comments.

Sources: Naked Security; The Journal; IT News; Coventry Telegraph.