Computer scam

[Whatoflife]

I've had a blackmail email to my work address (self employed) threatening to send videos of me masturbating to porn to all my contacts, Facebook contacts etc. It's asking for Bitcoin payment.
'The last time you visited a erotic website with young Teens,
you downloaded and installed the software I developed.
My program has turned on your camera and recorded your act of
Masturbation and the video you were masturbating to.
My software also downloaded all your email contact lists
and a list of your Facebook friends.'

Blah blah blah.

It's bullshit isn't it? it's deffo bullshit isn't it?

I'm not delving into my sexual habits, (obviously) but it's making me unnecessarily anxious.

And I feel like a complete idiot for even posting this.

Yep, a very, very common one these days.

Oh and never ever have a webcam uncovered unless you are using it. I pop a sticking plaster over my webcam as soon as I get a new laptop. Even my kindle has a bit of coloured tape over the lens.
Did you know that even Mark Zuckerberg, inventor of Facebook and computer software expert keeps tape on his and he will have the best antivirus and malware tech on his computers that money could buy.

Thank you TheLost, very reassuring!
How about smart phone camera?

Ive had loads of these at work - so has my boss!! I knew the info was dodgy as the email it told me i used hasn't been used for over 5 years.

Just ignore - but the advice to cover your laptop camera with sticking plaster or blutack is very wise.

Stop masturbating to images of young teens!

Thank Blobby.

Galactic I'm obviously not. But I'm not discussing my sex life and what me and my husband do/don't do. Your post is not helpful. are you the blackmailer?

I've heard that smartphones can be hacked too but maybe not as easily as computers (and your phone would get hot quickly and the battery would drain quicker).
It's not a big fear of mine but I have been known to pop a thumb over the camera or turning it face down if I'm getting changed etc. And my case is wallet style so the camera is covered anyway when not in use.

However, hacking is a LOT of hassle when scam artists can just pretend that they have done so.

I find the camera thing more worrying than any other type of hacking, not due to doing anything dodgy, just complete invasion of privacy

I replied on a skin tag removal post here the other day.

I now keep getting skin tag removal adverts appearing on my Facebook feed.

::starts fashioning a hat from tin foil::

I would not be surprised by any tech being used to spy on us but thankfully I'm rather quite boring so they'd be tuning out pretty quickly. These scams however are never ever true unless it is a specifically targeted person known to them. You can forward your email to the authorities if you want though. It probably won't stop them but it's a start.

I had these messages about 10 times now. I just delete them. It's a really old password that is on the email.

I know I dont look at porn, nor do I have a webcam for them to hack.

I bet people pay it though.

Just delete it and forget about it.

And don't reply to the one purportedly from BT that's doing the rounds today either. They say they are upgrading their security and please click here to update your details...

I bet people pay it though

The nice thing about Bitcoin in this case is that the blockchain is public, so you can see how much money the scam has made. The usual answer is “none”. So I don’t think many people are paying, no.

On the other hand, it’s probably the best advert for using a password manager with a unique password per site. When I got one of those scams I could immediately identify which breach was involved (in my case, the LinkedIn one) and be confident that I had changed the password on that account at the appropriate time.

Thanks for the reassurance all. I'm not one to fall for a scam by any means but being spied on makes me feel (unsurprisingly) uncomfortable!