Manitobans, Beware of Fraud Emails Asking for an Extortion Amount - RCMP

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has issued a warning for the public regarding the threat being caused by the email scam. Manitobans are receiving threatful emails demanding ransom money for watching porn videos online. The RCMP has strictly said to not give away any money to scammers, and fall prey to any such spam mails.

On July 26, 2018, RCMP reported that they are continuously getting reports of scammers asking for ransom. As per the RCMP, the extortion money is being demanded while giving references of victim's passwords.

The media was shown a copy of the scam email, in which the victim was informed by the scammer that the victim's computer was hacked, and the scammer has already released a virus into the victim's computer to infect it. The email further says that the virus has allowed the scammer to take control of the victim's computer webcam, and record a video showing the victim viewing pornography. The email further says that Bitcoin worth $1,000, if was not paid to the scammer, then the video will be sent to the victim's whole contact list.

The RCMP provides assurance to the public stating that the email scammers are not having any videos with them, and people when asked, should not be paying any ransom amount to the scammers. In place, they should immediately report the receipt of any such email to the police, so that the police become aware regarding scams taking place in the society. The scam should further be reported to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre as well. Though the scam is not new, but this has come into the limelight again as the hackers have started emailing the actual passwords to the victims, which the victim has been using currently or were used by them earlier.

Police thinks that the passwords obtained by the hackers are from the data breaches, which were carried out in the past. However, they are yet to find out about the people sending these email threats. RCMP has advised the victims to change their password immediately, in case they are using referenced password in the email. They have also advised users to change their passwords frequently, in order to save themselves from any such scam or hacking.

Further, RCMP has provided an online website link - www.haveibeenpwned.com - to find out whether the data of the user has been breached or not.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/3/2018