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Today, after many days I checked my spam folder in any case. And I was shocked because I see someone sends me my old Password. And blackmailing me to send him/her $1006. See below the screenshot of that email.

https://i.postimg.cc/WznLDJKW/Screenshot-2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/vmHzMxL8/Screenshot-4.jpg

Email comes from
So maybe you can not understand how was my condition that time. I could not understand what should I do that time. I was not worrying about the video of webcam because I know it’s totally fake but I did worry about the password and how they actually know that. Quickly I change all my passwords. And search on the internet with the address what the hacker sent me.


After searching on google I see I am not the only one who received this email. And the address already reported on https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/reports/1CcRhmdTHVaAjYqQbvkEPmMV4YymkS4efg

Also checked the address on blockchair. Fortunately till now nobody sent any fund to this address. (https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/1CcRhmdTHVaAjYqQbvkEPmMV4YymkS4efg)

So my suggestions to all the victims to not send any fund to them. And always keep safe your password. Don’t use your one password more than one place.

You can read this also to aware of these blackmails : https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/faq
 

This has been going on for month on end now. It’s an email that has got a couple of variants, but the same essence. Simply ignore it. There’s no truth to it (or is there …) except for the fact that they got hold of some darkweb database with emails and old passwords that go with it (at least the emails I got displayed a 8++ year old password).

P.D. Not a Meta topic really… (perhaps B&H).
 
See:
Report Bitcoin spam (scam) and other coin addresses! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5147344.msg51216387#msg51216387)
Do not send bitcoins to extortionists  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5057062.0)

Edit: A bunch o variants: https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/14321-i-know-is-one-of-your-pass-email-scam#quicksol (note that no need to remove anything, despite the path)

The fact that he's worried about it makes me think what he was doing in the early hours of the night :D

I don't even bother to read those emails.

If you receive such black emails, the first thing you should do is change passwords of your account on another device if you have.

However, remember this step does not truly help you because if you do it on your compromised devices, it does not make much sense. It is a very first step to prevent them attack your accounts immediately. So your new passwords should be wipen out later when you completely clear your devices.

How to clear your devices? Install good AV softwares. Scan all drives.

After scanning process, and delete all threats are detected, the next important step is install your operating system.

After installation finishes, rescan your devices with AV softwares again.

Last step is to change all your passwords again (no replicated formats, templates). Totally new passwords.

[GUIDE] How to Create a Strong/Secure Password (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5132378.0)

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I agree with Jet Cash that I don't read emails from strange addresses.

The email came a few days ago. So I did not worried about the last night.  ;D But surely I was worrying about how they know the password.

I am also don't care to read spam folders. Even I did not notice it for a few months. Today suddenly I visit and see the password of mine. I was shocked then.  :)

This is just a generic extortion email sent by crooks to scare you into sending them BTC. They didn't actually hack anything, and even the email address of the sender is a fake email and not actually hacked.

They really did get your old password but only .because it was in a database leaked a while ago. It doesn't even have to be your bitcointalk password, it could be the passaord of any service that was breahed, and they just scrape all the email addresses in the database that has passwords in them and send them this extortion email.

They just assume everyone in the database watches porn and is vulnerable to thinking that someone else spied on them. They made an extortion campaign like that in 2018 and made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars but this present heist has been lackluster, and people don't seem to be falling for it this time around.

There is even an extortion campaign threatening to give you coronavirus: https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/04/17/scams-lies-coronavirus/ apparently the crooks are desparate for money but even the most dim-witted victims don't believe someonw on the internet can come to them in real life and infect rhem :D

@OcTradism, none of these steps are actually necessay because OP wasn't infected today or recently, they did not steal the current password either, so there is nothing to worry about.

I've been receiving this kind of email I guess since a year ago due to the publicity of the email of my website. One time I read something like "I see you vids on your webcam bla bla, so send me bitcoin so you will be pardon" and I just ignore them or simply they just eventually go to the spam folder.

There is a thread on the forum that takes about password spraying and maybe, this generic message could also be sent in that order. It could have been sprayed on varying emails and await some potential victim to comply.
Probably they got your password through what ever means as they've always had some way but then, it's a warning upon you now to carefully check your activities properly not to be a victim of phishing platforms.
And one thing I know and believe strongly is that, giving in to blackmails supposing it's true doesn't make it go away. It's either you become an office always ready to supply to your blackmailer and in due time, the publicity of what you intend to hide would go out.
So why the heck should you comply...?

Another tips (after you changed your password and use more privacy browser). If you want to check your email is breached or not, you can use these sites :
1. https://haveibeenpwned.com/
2. https://monitor.firefox.com/

those sites will give detailed information which websites your email data was breached from.
And one legendary tips. Always close the camera on your laptop or turned off your laptop camera or unplug your webcam when not in use. You can use tape to cover the camera on your laptop.

If you are Win 10 user, check the camera permission in setting.

Consider it a PSA. If you're still using that particular password anywhere - you should change it. Other than that the "hacker" has nothing on you. I wouldn't go changing every other password because that may cause more trouble than it's worth.

I had also recieved a similar email few month back demanding me the same amount to be paid in Bitcoin. The hacker never wrote that he has my account details but told me that they would hack my email and also my devices if I did not pay the amount.

I am still waiting for them to do it so that I can trace their IP address and report it to the authorities.

I know these guys are spammers who are trying to extort money by threatening me as a hacker will always hack first and then ask for money.

Just don't be afraid of these kind of blackmail even if they got your video and accessed your account will not cause you any trouble unless you are a public figure/celebrity.But next time you should be careful when clicking any links, normally these kind of attacks were happening on skype video calls now they also got evolved. :D

But AFAIK, and in my opinion, this kind of hacking of the computer's camera is pretty possible. Though it's not a simple task for the hacker, it's still can be done. But it will just be activated once you've been affected by malware that access your computer's camera. Obvious prevention for this kind of malware is to be much careful when surfing  the internet, whether through clicking suspicious links or connecting into a public wifi.

They may have send this type of mail to many people and asking for the money. These people keep doing such attempts to collect money and they are successful too. Some may send money to these scammers which make them feel that this is an easy way to get money out of people's pocket. People needs to be educated and understand what the hacker can or cannot do with the information he has.

That's the type of fear that blakcmailers feed on. But in reality if someone plants malware on your computer then camera is probably going to be the least of your worries. They'd be sniffing for passwords etc. There is very little benefit from hijacking the camera. It might be of interest in certain targeted attacks but is generally not very useful for a widespread malware extortion racket.

If someone was actually blackmailing you, they'd show you the blackmailing materials immediately instead of saying "yeah I totally have it, don't even try to ask for proof". They'd also refer to you by your name, though this alone is not enough, cause many people have public profiles with their real names, and during database breaches this info gets stolen. Even if you will receive a real blackmailing email, it's better to contact authorities rather than immediately complying with criminal's demands.

I think it is just a bluff, for sure it is possible to hack into a computer or even access something in a computer like information or a webcam.

But in my observation, there is no point for a hacker to blackmail using an email, also you already know if there is some sensitive information or things that you could lose.

Sending money is I think the worst thing to do if they already take something, just think of it as lost already that is I think the best thing to do. Or else just ignore this email.

Delete and forget. It goes around for some time already, I received it too. Some old (non-porn) database was hacked and the hackers use it to blackmail people with those chain emails.

Yeah, its possible but not on my computer. My browser will let me know if there's something suspicious before it manage to land on my device for another security check.

If you're such a kind of user who always do dirty things in front of your desktop then I guess you should be worried? That's how black mailing works eh?

I would like to echo what OP just said here. I was a victim (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5099552.msg49313923#msg49313923) once.  Using the same password for different sites looks cool until there's a data breach in one of the websites and the hacker publishes the login details in a public  forum. That's when hell breaks loose.

This is the current state of the weak old password is used to use.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blob5b0ab1f3fe403239.png

Sometimes it's more than that. A hacker might use your webcam to record your face and use it to trick some KYC platform, or record your room/house or whatever it is and sell it to somebody else (for intelligence purpose). Who knows. Which is why blacking out your webcam when not needed is a good practice, regardless what kind of things you're doing on your computer.

I also recieve that kind of email last month but after reading the email i immediately deleted it. I dont have time talking to a hacker and im not interested even hes black mailing me.

I'm not receiving any kind of email like that in my spam folder. Make sure your password is strong enough to secure your account the primary we need to secure our email account because once they know our password they can access our account and those accounts to the website registered to that email is possible to open also and lose our funds.

About blackmailing hoping no people will send any amount of money for these wrong things but in reality, we know they have people are scared once they got that messages so we need to guide them to not to follow of what they said to you so they can prevent losing of funds.

Glad I didn't receive such email. But even if I did, I won't make much a big deal out of it. If it's in my spam folder, then maybe it's nothing important that's why it was there. I also get text messages that I have to know something important so I should call them back or I won a huge amount of money. After reading it, all I can say is, "Whatever".

But of course, let's always be careful regarding this kind of matter. Our security and safety should be our priority. Let's not allow this kind of email bother us or make us a victim.

In fact I often receive emails like this and I always check the spam folder but I always let it be because I feel I have never registered anything on the site listed, even I often receive forgot password emails and if we click it will be very dangerous so I always let it because messages that go into the folder are messages that are not important to me.

But I also always check whether this is a real site or not. I often think about whether to register or not because I often forget and don't remember to ask for a ransom for bitcoin.

This is like the best tip, probably your password is in one of a database leak including your email address. No worries at all, it are maleficent users that are targetting people who's credentials are in those leaks/dumps.

So yes there is a high probability that your password has been leaked. Always a smart move to change your password on sites where you've used that specific password.

Yes, most likely a browser data leak could have occurred. If malware enters the computer, a hacker can use it to see a lot of information in the browser history. Plus favorites, cache, passwords, cookies, web-sql files, browsing history, indexedDB, and more.
In this case, to prevent this from happening, you must always clear all history and cookies so that it is difficult for a hacker to see any browsing history and subsequently use it.

More likely, a credential leak/hack from a website (or a compilation of them). These BDs have been on the market for some time, and this sort of email has a bunch of variations that have been used for a couple of years now.

The fact that, in my case, they displayed an email/password I haven’t used for years (although I still received emails on it, until I closed it down recently), goes to show that the list they compile is not sophisticated, nor necessarily up-to-date, and probably cheapish to acquire in bulk, and blindly target many of them with this kind of email. Some will bring people into a state of panic if the password is recent or current on some site, and that’s when one may make mistakes.

DO NOT PAY!
I receive such emails regularly. They are mass spam mails that aim to make a few people fall for it and pay. I have recently posted several such emails I received in the German forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5269207.0;topicseen) and I have also looked at the Bitcoin address where a few transactions have been made. Meanwhile it seems to be a profitable business with minimal effort.
The reason for this is that you probably entered your email address in bounty or airdrop campaigns at some point and they were then sold. There are plenty of such offers of contact details of cryto users in relevant forums.

Most of us have encountered this at least once. Mainly from an old site that got compromised or had its data sold to third-parties.

As long as you're no longer using the old password elsewhere, there's little to be concerned about.

Few months ago I have also received the same message. I was going to ignore it but got curiosity about the password matter. Though it was my old password in the message. I searched in Google and found a lot other people faced the same thing. There are few more different types of message scammer send to people and ask bitcoin to compromise. I haven't fall in their trap. We should always stay aware about those for our safety.

You have checked an old spam email yet nothing has happened even after the days the email has been sent which only means the threat isn't real and the scammer either has been lucky guessing your password or has posted a common password a lot of people are using. These typea of blackmail are not real and they are just only using common facts that exists on a lot of people that's why some of them are thinking it os true. Don't be worried about this email as the threat isn't real and they are just guessing it. I won't even both reading those kinds of email that have been sent into spam.

Guys, understand hackers thats send blackmailing message usually get their victim information through social media account and some online store that was victim of dara breached. An example is US ellis island site in the year 2004-2009 which admin login (where user email and private information can be find) was compromised and alot of people lost atleast $12,000 before it was changed to heritage.statueofliberty
The best thing to do when such hackers wrote you is to ignore the message and report the email with crypto wallet address as a scam.

This kind site shouldn't be trust cause they use Cloudflare and could also sell their user emails.

Yeap, True that haveibeenpwned using cloudfare (https://www.cloudflare.com/case-studies/troy-hunt) and is admitted by troy hunt himself (https://www.troyhunt.com/tag/cloudflare/). But doesnt mean that site can't be trust. I use that site coz that site highly recommended when you want to know if your email breached and also, that site has been running for a years without too many negative comments.

The last few day I also took the time to check the spam email in the folder and so far I have not found anything related to the threat as you feel. Truth be told, we might all panic when we first get a threat like the OP described and it is the beginning of the downfall if it come down to obeying the hackers' request.

I rarely check e-mail that come in because I don't think there's anything important to talk about. Not a single link I receive in an email that I don't recognize I open and most of the time I will ignore it. Thank you for sharing, this will be my experience in the future.

The site service can be trust but what I mean is that if they have technical difficulty through hacker attack the cloudflare will make easy for the hacker to get the information of their user thats why I mean when I said it shouldnt be trusted.