Researchers have recently discovered a sextortion scam targeting victims in the Netherlands. The attackers behind the campaign have already successfully made €40,000 (46,247.32 USD). There has also been a variant seen targeting English-speaking users. The victim will receive the note via email and the subject is the victim’s email followed by “48 hours to pay.” The sender of the email will also be the victim’s email. The attackers state in the ransom note, “Within a period from July 30, 2018 to October 9, 2018, you were infected by the virus we’ve created, through an adult website you’ve visited. So far, we have access to your messages, social media accounts, and messengers. Moreover, we’ve gotten full damps [dumps] of these data.” The attackers are trying to scare the victim into paying a ransom in order to erase the data. These scams have been very successful in the past, but it’s important to learn about these scams so users don’t fall for them. If a user receives an email similar to this, they are advised to delete the email and perform a scan on their machine to ensure that they are not infected.
