Email threats to release salacious videos unless you pay are ‘all talk,’ FTC says
A new wave of blackmail emails threatening to send your friends and family explicit videos of you visiting pornographic websites unless you silence the sender with a Bitcoin payoff is a scam, federal and local officials say.
And it’s hitting Wichita-area residents.
The Federal Trade Commission in an online post Wednesday said reports of the latest incarnation of the Bitcoin blackmail scam “have taken a big jump in the last few weeks” nationwide.
The Consumer Division of the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office has received a half-dozen complaints about the scam since last week, spokesman Dan Dillon said by email.
“Based on the timing of this spike, you may get one of these messages because your email was exposed in a recent data breach,” consumer education specialist Bridget Small wrote in the FTC post.
“The scammers may say they have access to your computer or webcam, or installed clever software to defeat you. That’s all talk.”
But the messages, which threaten to release explicit videos of the target within hours unless they pay into a Bitcoin account, can be unnerving because the scammers claim they have the recipient’s old or recent password.
And they include it in the email to prove it.
“When you see that, you know it’s time to update your password on that account, and consider updating other passwords, too,” Small said.
The FTC and local officials say anyone who receives such an email should delete it immediately and notify authorities. You can make a report at www.ftc.gov/complaint.
“The best advice if you receive a frightening email ... is breathe, take a minute and talk to someone close to you” instead of yielding to the sender’s demands, Senior Assistant District Attorney Avery Elofsson said.
“You’ll realize it likely doesn’t make sense.”
