Increase in 'blackmail' emails?

Forums › ICT Policies and Regulation › Increase in 'blackmail' emails?

ajbw

115 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#304104 4-Apr-2023 16:47

By which I mean emails which start along the lines of

"Hello! Regrettably, I have bad news for you.
Few months back, I managed to get access to your device..."

and want a Bitcoin payment.

I used to get one every few months, but the rate has increased a lot recently.

Anyone else getting them?

More interestingly, one of them had a login email and a password which were from a
data breach at Machinery House a few years back. They were unique to that account.

This raises some questions:

- Did Machinery House know of of this breach?
- If not, why not?
- If they did, should they have told their customers about it?

I have contacted Machinery House, but have received no reply.

Behodar

10517 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3059087 4-Apr-2023 16:57

I haven't seen that one.

At one point I started getting spam email to a unique address that I'd only used on one particular site. It was only 2-3 years later that they bothered to tell their customers about the breach.

SirHumphreyAppleby

2852 posts

Uber Geek

#3059092 4-Apr-2023 17:22

If the data breach was a few years ago, there was no obligation to tell customers. Sometimes, it's better to keep a low profile. I've been a customer for a few years and I don't recall ever receiving a breach notice.

I had a few of the blackmail e-mails a couple of weeks back, after not having had any in a long time. I really should get a Webcam.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18668 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3059156 4-Apr-2023 19:36

I had one of those on an unimportant overseas account years ago. According to it I had been doing something unmentionable in front of my webcam. Since I don't have a webcam and don't do that kind of thing anyway, I wasn't bothered and just ignored it.

I did have some weirdness just the other day. It might have been coincidental but the timing seemed a bit odd. First, I got a notification from The Guardian regarding an account I didn't have. The email was mine and the user name was similar, though not identical. With some difficulty (I didn't know the password so couldn't change settings) I got the account removed.

Then I got a membership notification on another account from a 'mature' porn site in Slovakia. I had to jump through quite a few hoops but I managed to delete it. As soon as I did an identical clone popped up in Bulgaria. I went through the same routine and deleted that as well. Since then nothing else has appeared. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Tinkerisk

4235 posts

Uber Geek

#3059161 4-Apr-2023 20:10

ajbw: By which I mean emails which start along the lines of

"Hello! Regrettably, I have bad news for you.
Few months back, I managed to get access to your device..."

and want a Bitcoin payment.

I used to get one every few months, but the rate has increased a lot recently.

Anyone else getting them?

More interestingly, one of them had a login email and a password which were from a
data breach at Machinery House a few years back. They were unique to that account.

This raises some questions:

- Did Machinery House know of of this breach?
- If not, why not?
- If they did, should they have told their customers about it?

I have contacted Machinery House, but have received no reply.

Check your current/old email address/es on https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and you know on what information the blackmail relies on.

You (former credentials, hopefully not the actual ones) might have ended on a blacklist. By now, these lists seem to have reached the last would-be hacker among the stones of the Gobi desert - which, however, cannot replace the complete lack of foreign language education. I just fear that these guys will eventually use AI in the future to compensate for this.

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