Scam????

[hudsonvett]

My teenage son has received this email and is worrying about it.

I've told him it's a scam which I'm convinced it is but just to put his mind at rest, I thought I'd get some clarification on here.

It's been sent from his actual email address to himself, that's the part that's weird.

Best way forward - block himself on his email address if that's possible?

I got the exact same one. Obviously a scam so I deleted it but please reassure him I've never looked at porn.

These scammers are disgusting.

Forward it to: report@phishing.gov.uk

OP, well done on having the type of relationship with your son that means he is comfortable and secure enough with you to come to you for help with this kind of thing. Scammers rely on teenage boys panicking because of feeling ashamed if they HAVE been looking at porn. And many teenage boys do, it's freely out there. No parent should be naiive enough to think that their teenager has never looked at anything of a sexual nature on the internet, even out of curiosity.

Reassure him that it's a scam. And praise him for coming to you.

I've had this email and my computer doesn't even have a camera. Delete and ignore.

I didn't mean that I thought your son HAD been looking at porn, by the way, OP. He may not have done. But it's worth bearing in mind that he may have accidentally seen something and be freaking out that the scam is real.

This. There's not really any point reporting it to Action Fraud as there hasn't been a fraud. Ditto law enforcement. I get these all the time and just forward them to the phishing email address. I know it's easy to worry but hundreds of thousands of these emails are sent out - they either persuade people to pay the ransom, steal personal details or infect your computer with malware (or all three).

It is easy to make an email look like it has come from someone else.

This is a scam, and there is no need to block, just ignore it. They are fishing.

Either he has subscribed to somewhere that has sold his email address, or one of his friends has been hacked, or a company that he has legitimately given his email address to has been hacked, or he has clicked a link and inadvertently given his email address. Very difficult to avoid this sort of thing these days.

I’ve had a scam email supposedly sent from my email address however it hasn’t been as no one has logged into my account (I can see there have been attempts, but outlook shows that all have been unsuccessful, as I have a strong password and two step verification). Also outlook recognised it as junk, and put it into my junk folder.

However I usually block junk/ scam emails but it won’t let me because the system thinks it is my email address! Which is confusing, however I am certain that they haven’t accessed my account. There must be a system where they can make it look like emails are coming from a particular email address.

Total scam. I've had that type of email and I'm a 30something woman who's never accessed an adult website or opened a webcam.
I would be concerned about his reaction though, if he has bever sent vidoes of himself anywhere it should be easy to reassure him.... if he has it might be time for a better Internet safety talk.
Oh, and I just deleted it along with all the other scam emails. Nothing happened.

My colleague got one of these today! Yes, it’s a total scam and they’re doing the rounds at the moment - they have been for years. Here’s some info from the Microsoft community.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/what-is-this-cobalt-strike-beacon-i-got-this-email/5637def1-3cae-4de8-bbe9-683bc2fe2239

Spoofing email addresses isn't that difficult for a criminal. Receiving an email from yourself doesn't mean you sent it but that the criminals have made the address they sent it from look like yours.

There’s no need to do anything other than delete it and change his password.

They can actually clone email addresses to make it look genuine, eg. people have received emails from their boss at work asking them to send money or buy vouchers and things and it’s been a scam.

Reassure him OP. Most emails that are from people he doesn’t know are highly likely to be scams. It’s great he’s spoken to you about it, it’s great practice for online safety. 10/10 for him.

Its a scam. A well known one, they haven't got anything on him.

He needs to change his password though as they clearly have access to his email account and run a scan. I'd probably use a chameleon, Malwarebytes used to have a good one but I haven't used it for many years.

If there is any strange behaviour on his devices, I'd be a bit more thorough and scan with a tool that launches before the operating system just to sniff out any nasties but doubt they've bothered tbh. They count on people falling for the scam, rootkits and the like are too much like hard work.

How horrible for your son to receive such a nasty message
forward it to the police and action fraud and change the email password

@hudsonvett look up "email spoofing" for how it's very easy to change the "sent from" field on an email to say anything you like.

It doesn't in the least mean that he must have had his account hacked or passwords taken, but it's good practice to change your passwords to different and longer pass-phrases after something like this.

Also good practice to use a password safe, then you can have extremely long passwords/pass-phrases and something unique for every account, without having to remember them all yourself.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/ is a good website to look up whether your email account has been located in a data breach. Not 100% reliable (nothing is), but it gives you a bit more info.

I ALWAYS USED TO THINK THAT PEOPLE WOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT IF THEY HAD BEEN USING PORN AND DIDN’T WANT E.G. SOMEONE TO FIND OUT. BUT ACTUALLY THE WHOLE TONE OF THAT EMAIL IS OMINOUS, TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY HAVE VIRUSES ON YOUR COMPUTER AND ARE CURRENTLY IN CONTROL OF IT, HOW THE VIRUSES ARE UNDETECTABLE AND HOW THEY ARE MINING ALL OF YOUR DATA. EVEN WITHOUT THE MENTION OF DODGY WEBSITES THAT KIND OF TALK IS ENOUGH T GET SOME PEOPLE RATTLED.

It's a very old/common one and it hasn't come from his own email address. His email addressed has been spoofed, which anyone with a spare 5-10 minutes can do.

Absolutely nothing to worry about :)

You can't know though. It's good practice if you think there is a chance its been compromised, treat it as though it has been. Change password, force log out of all devices and scan.

Considering how much of our lives is online now, a compromised email account is a massive pain in the arse.

I've had several such emails, all of them written in the same friendly-but-threatening tone, explaining how they will release videos of me "enjoying myself" whilst watching dodgy content. Since I never watch porn, the "enjoying myself" that they refer to must be me cooing over cat videos or wasting time on Mumsnet.

I don't mind if they send videos of me watching cat videos/Mumsnet to all my contacts, so I ignore their demands.

Funnily enough, not one of my contacts has ever mentioned receiving a video of me!

No - if he blocks his own email he won't get any at all - even ones he wants. His email has been spoofed and not much he can do about that. But he should change his password anyway.

You gotta laugh at these idiots. They never offer you any proof they have any of this stuff they say they have, they are always going to send it straight to friends and family (how convenient). If they had this much info they'd have wiped out your online bank account long ago. Plus hilarious how you're apparently going to get a heavy fine or arrested for GDPR - after they've stolen all your data (supposedly) - what a joke!

Another favourite bit of mine that's often on these emails is that they say they can be trusted to delete all your info once you pay them because they are always true to their word (or something along those lines). Oh yes, what a relief to know you're a completely trustworthy person 🙄.

I've been sent this sort of email more times than I care to remember, report and block and don't give it another thought - oh except to change his password.

And if he gets any offers of a million dollars from a Nigerian prince tell him he can ignore that nonsense too!

Scam, I’ve been getting these for years. Best ones are the one that mention they can see me “jerking off” but I do not own a penis!

I sometimes get 10 a day between my various email addresses

the email address thing is very easy to spoof. Has been a thing for well over a decade. Unrelated to this but a general word of warning: scammers can do it with phone numbers too!

delete, don’t give it another thought

I got one like this the other week addressed “hello pervert!”. Just ignored. Hope he will be reassured.

It's a scam but he may want to report it as he is a teenager, if I got it I wouldn't bother but teens can get quite upset by these