Scam targets a man from Norfolk County by threatening to expose his Adult website viewing habits

A common man from Norfolk County, Southwestern Ontario, Canada, has been targeted by an email scammer. The scammer has sent him a threatening email saying that they have got the list of all the adult websites he has visited till now.

The Norfolk man who got targeted by an email scammer, received the unwelcome email in the month of December said Norfolk County Ontario Provincial Police, Const. Ed Sanchuk. The email threaten that if the Norfolk man does not pay ransom money to the email sender, then the man's favorite pornographic websites list would be circulated amongst all his contacts whoever is there in the email.

After receiving this kind of an email, the man from Norfolk County didn't get scared or didn't press the panic button, and hence, neither he paid the money in the form of ransom nor he gave away any of his personal information to the scammer. Instead, the Norfolk man called up the police for help on December 18, 2018 (i.e. on Tuesday). On learning about this kind of incident, the police also warned the public about the same.

The police said these kinds of email messages are called scareware, and are designed to scare people, create anxiety and often leave the email recipient shocked and shattered. The fear aroused through these kinds of emails are such that the email recipient often end up paying the ransom, so that the scammer does not cause any further harm to the recipient.

Ed Sanchuk said that if a person has received any email of these kinds, then the fact is the computer probably is infected by a virus. Also if someone has been locked out of his or her computer, then that also means that the system is infected by a virus.

The Police have given the following instructions in order to protect yourself like: one should not try to download the anti-virus software through any link that has been sent through email; one should always update the anti-virus software, and the computer should be scanned frequently for any virus; one should never click on attachments or links in emails sent by an unknown contact; the pop-up blocking feature on your browser should always be kept on; and one should avoid clicking on a pop-up which says the computer has got virus.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/3/2019