LKA Lower Saxony warns of ongoing scam with blackmail emails
The scammers are not letting up, warns the LKA Lower Saxony. Blackmail emails with alleged video recordings continue to circulate.
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On the Polizei-Praevention.de portal, the LKA Lower Saxony is currently warning of a scam involving blackmail emails in which the perpetrators claim to have allegedly compromising recordings of the victim. They threaten to publish these alleged recordings and demand a ransom.
The detectives explain in the warning that this scam has been occurring constantly since 2018. In these spam-like emails, the perpetrators usually claim to have infected the alleged victim's email account or even their computer with spyware. As a result, they would have observed and recorded the victims visiting pornographic websites in particular. In some cases, the blackmail emails even contain correct passwords or postal addresses. And according to the LKA Lower Saxony, the variant in which the fraudsters send pictures of the victims' actual surroundings is no longer limited to the USA.
Building up pressure with supposedly personal details
"The perpetrators take these measures to make the recipient believe the claims in the email, get scared and pay the requested amount in bitcoins or other crypto values," explain the officials. However, such data usually comes from copied databases from online stores or other companies, the Lower Saxons add. The tapping of such information, for example through fake text messages such as fake parcel or customs notifications and the resulting entry of real data by recipients, could also be a source.
The reason for the current warning is a specific fraudulent email that law enforcement officers have received. However, it is not a warning about a specific new wave, but about the fact that this scam is constantly occurring. The officials advise recipients of these e-mails not to reply to them and not to pay any money. Not even if the e-mail contains personal data. If data such as passwords can be assigned to specific accounts, recipients should change the password there and ideally activate two-factor authentication or even switch to passkeys. The Hasso Plattner Institute's Identity Leak Checker or the Have-I-been-Pwned project can be used to check whether your own email account appears in such data leaks and is therefore the target of such spam.
Interested parties can also find a full copy of such a sextortion scam email in the warning from the LKA Lower Saxony.
The "sextortion" scam is not always based on spam emails sent to many people. Other perpetrators blackmail minors into exposing themselves in front of a camera or performing sexual acts. At the end of August, one such offender in Australia was sentenced to 17 years in prison. His victims included 180 minors.
(dmk)