1

How do you deal with scam emails?

We recently got a scam email

Here is the message:

Hi tҺere!

I am a professional Һäçker and Һave successfully managed to Һäçk your operating system.
Currently I Һave gained full access to your account.

In addition, I was secretly monitoring all your activities and watcҺing you for several montҺs.
tҺe tҺing is your computer was infected witҺ Һarmful spyware due to tҺe fact tҺat you Һad visited a website witҺ [redacted] content previously.

Let me explain to you wҺat tҺat entails. tҺanks to trojan viruses, I can gain complete access to your computer or any otҺer device tҺat you own.
It means tҺat I can see absolutely everytҺing in your screen and switcҺ on tҺe camera as well as micropҺone at any point of time witҺout your permission.
In addition, I can also access and see your confidential information as well as your emails and cҺat messages.

You may be wondering wҺy your antivirus cannot detect my malicious software.
Let me break it down for you: I am using Һarmful software tҺat is driver-based, wҺicҺ refresҺes its signatures on 4-Һourly basis, Һence your antivirus is unable to detect it presence.

I Һave made a video compilation, [redacted], wҺile on tҺe rigҺt side it demonstrates tҺe video you were watcҺing at tҺat moment…ᵔ.ᵔ

All I need is just to sҺare tҺis video to all the contacts of people you are in communication witҺ on your device or PC. (wich i allready saved all of them) FurtҺermore, I can also make public all your emails and cҺat Һistory.

Ꮖ bҽliҽvҽ yơu wơuld dҽfinitҽly want tơ avơid tҺis frơm Һappҽning.
Һҽrҽ is wҺat yơu nҽҽd tơ dơ - transfҽr tҺҽ Bitcơin ҽquivalҽnt ơf 1410 USD tơ my Bitcơin äccơunt (tҺat is ratҺҽr a simplҽ prơcҽss, wҺicҺ yơu can cҺҽck ơut ơnlinҽ in casҽ if yơu dơn’t knơw Һơw tơ dơ tҺat).

Bҽlơw is my bitcơin accơunt infơrmatiơn (Bitcơin wallet):
1D6Vbm1Xo5JgDNxtmbZr6BLtKRfcuTpsXf

Once tҺe required amount is transferred to my account, I will proceed witҺ deleting all tҺose videos and disappear from your life once and for all.
Kindly ensure you complete tҺe abovementioned transfer witҺin 5O Һours (2 days +).
I will receive a notification rigҺt after you open tҺis email, Һence tҺe countdown will start.

trust me, I am very careful, calculative and never make mistakes.
If I discover tҺat you sҺared tҺis message witҺ otҺers, I will straigҺt away proceed witҺ making your private videos public.

Good luck!

2 Spice ups
2

Just delete the email and block the sender. Report this to your email administrators and management so that they know is a hoax and/or spam.

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3

most people these days wouldn’t care about this

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4

Only one? This is daily for most people.

Given that we don’t know if you are asking for a personal account or a business one, and under which service, the default answer is block delete.

If this is for work/365, create a transport rule to quarantine any emails with ‘bitcoin wallet’ I expect your business doesn’t use these.

Alternatively, there is a junk>mark as spam option in outlook, use this.

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5

How do I deal with these e-mails? Personally, I laugh at how completely ridiculous, grandiose, and technically inaccurate they are they are and delete them. As far official policy goes, I our tell users to just ignore and delete them. They just happened to be unfortunate enough to get one that happened to get past our spam filter. Otherwise, they would not have had to bother being concerned about it in the first place.

This particular scam (i.e. pay us a bitcoin ransom or we’ll publicly release compromising pictures/videos of you) is fairly old news at this point. However, this particular implementation of it is fairly clever because a lot of keywords and phrasing that would normally get flagged are intentionally using non-Roman characters which are fairly similar in their glyphs to the correct characters but would be drastically differing in their character codes so as to get past basic spam filtering (it probably wouldn’t get past a decent Bayesian filter though). For example “Bitcoin” is spelled as “Bitcơin” and uses an “ơ” (which is one of the 12 Vietnamese language vowels) instead of an “o”.

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6

“Given that we don’t know if you are asking for a personal account or a business one, and under which service, the default answer is block delete.”

  • it’s for a work email.

"If this is for work/365, create a transport rule to quarantine any emails with ‘bitcoin wallet’ I expect your business doesn’t use these. "

  • Thanks :slight_smile:
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7

Seems like our Manager has accidentally click a Dating website.
VulgarMilfs something dot com.

Scanned the PC clean.
Thank goodness there is no infection.

:slight_smile:

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8

Accidentally?

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9

Allegedly.

He is a good manager. Very kind person.

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10

That’s what I was thinking. LOL

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11

Perhaps a little too eager.

Now… what was that website again. www… brb

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12

We use Trustwave MailMarshal. It picks all of those kinds of emails up under its Malware - Threats (threatening language) rules.

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13

thanks for the input. :slight_smile:

14

We have within our Outlook app, a option (red shield logo) to report the email as either phishing email or junk email.

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15

it’s more of a scam/ransom or black mail email than phishing to me.

But thanks for the suggestion.

16

I usually flag emails like that as spam.
But I have to admit, the first time I got one it really threw me off!