Category: Scams & Ransomware

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I get a lot of spam. A lot of phishing attacks. Gmail does a pretty good job of filtering them out. Last week the prevalent phishing attack was an attempt to get you to ‘complete the process of unsubscribing’. This attempt at social engineering was obviously timed to coincide with the European deadline for GDPR compliance, which led many individuals to unsubscribe rather than opt-into marketing.

This week brings us a phishing attack that might scare your pants off, at first glance. Most Americans have probably had their username and password leaked at some point. So, when you receive an email that starts off by listing your password, you might sit up and take notice. I received this email because one of my accounts was associated with a password breach, so I know this has to be circulating big time! (It was for a password I also changed over a year ago.)

Many Americans have visited an adult website at some point in the past. When you marry up the two, you have a very convincing phishing email that then requests you send a cryptocurrency ransom to prevent a video of what you supposedly were watching along with footage from your computer’s camera. Here is an example phishing email:

Don’t fall for this scam. But, what you can do is to visit a site like Have I Been Pwned to see if your email is associated with any breaches, so you can be sure to change any passwords that might have been leaked in the past. Stay safe and secure!