Extortion attempt

Question

I received an extortion e-mail on my Hotmail account.  I was demanded payment by  bit coin to prevent exposing my internet contacts to everyone of my listings.  The subject line listed much of the password content of many of my accounts.

Answer 1

This extortion message is going around various hotmail/outlook accounts today. My wife received one this AM. The purported sender is someone named "Elayne Schoier" with the address "******@outlook.com." The person claims that she/he caught you browsing a **** where she/he has installed malware. Further, "While you were watching the video, your web browser acted as an RDP (Remote Desktop) and a keylogger, which pro[v]ided me access to your to your display screen and webcam. Right after that, my software gathered all your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook account, and email account." The above-named person wants $3900 in payment using Bitcoin and gives a Bitcoin address to remit payment. Otherwise, the above named individual will send a video of you browsing the **** to all your contacts. The above-named individual claims she/he has an old password previously used by you. 

A couple of observations: if in fact you really didn't visit a **** (presumably on the dark web), then the extortioner/-ist didn't get to use malware (and a RDP device) to retrieve all your contact info and doesn't in fact have it. This is blackmail. Secondly, this is a scam by someone(s) of Greek origin—many of the script letters in the text of the email we received are in fact Greek letters from the Greek alphabet—not Roman letters. The foreign script letters in the email are not cyrillic which would indicate the presence of the Russian mafia. Third, the extortionist claims that if payment is not made in 24 hours then she/he will "expose" you to family, friends, contacts etc. This is the kind of stuff that needs to be reported to the FBI.

FYI, I happen to know that right now there are apparently some thieves (using Greek websites) stealing credit/debit card numbers from unsuspecting customers at gas stations in the Redmond, WA area and then making unauthorized withdrawals from individual's checking accounts. A word to the wise: do not ever buy gasoline from stations anywhere when the red security tape has been removed from the card reader. You're going to get hacked. There is an absolute enormous amount of this theft and fraud happening right now throughout the Puget Sound area.

Meanwhile, if you get an email making threats of extortion and blackmail, make a copy of the email, block it, and you may want to report it to the police.

M. T. Mueller

Answer 2

Please read: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/large-email-extortion-campaign-underway-dont-panic/

and mark that email as junk/spam and delete it.

Answer 3

Good article. Thanks for sharing this!

Answer 4

Maybe I wanted to do more than just mark it as junk/spam? 

Why not concentrate on more fruitful things?

You would really do good if you would help 'educating' all your friends/relatives/etc about these kinds of scams ;)

Perhaps also reading all of Answers to common security questions - Best Practices

and here especially Beware of Phony Emails, Phone Calls & Tech Support Scams 

Answer 5

Hi there! My name is Brandon. I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you.

I know how frustrating it is to receive this type of email messages. Worry not, I am here to help you with your concern.

For guidance, you can check this support link:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-to...

Let me know how it goes.