What is sextortion? According to the Oxford dictionary it is, “the practice of extorting money or sexual favours from someone by threatening to reveal evidence of their sexual activity.” Maybe it’s happened to you before, or seen it in the movies, but this is a modern day phenomenon made easy by the internet.
Now, scammers tend to ask victims, to send them crypto so they remain anonymous.
Before you freak out, take a deep breath
Although it is possible, chances are small, that someone you do not know has a picture of you. It may simply be a scam, so best not to send them crypto just yet.
Sophos Labs with Ciphertrace, spent four months tracking and researching the wallet activity of one sextortion campaign, to learn what is going on behind these scams.
They found that scammers are claiming up to 4 new victims every day with sextorition emails. They are making as much as $100,000 a month on basically sending out an email.
Sophos told forbes, in an article that, “these operations are typically run by low-level scammers.”
They also gave some tips on how to maneuver around these scams.
Sophos states that they have not seen evidence that these sextortion scammers are that sophisticated. While it’s possible for hackers to surreptitiously record you with your webcam
They may pretend that they have one of your passwords, but Sophos has an explanation for this. It is easy to find out your password, and you should maybe make it more complex. There are cybercriminals, whose lifeline is to find, sell and trade passwords on hacking forums. This does not mean that they have your nudes.
If you ever feel threatened over the web, breathe, report to authorities. For god sakes, do not send them your money.