My Nickname In Darknet Email Scam

What is "My nickname in darknet Email Scam"?

Scammers use the "My nickname in darknet Email Scam" spam email campaign to trick people into paying money by making threats.

Generally, they claim that they have obtained a compromising video or image of the recipient and that they will proliferate this material if their ransom demands are not met. If you have received one of these emails, there is nothing to worry about, it is just a scam.

In the email, a person associated with the "My nickname in darknet Email Scam" email claims to be a member of darknet whose nickname is "bruis09" (and is also known as "higgins12", "kippar74", "keir43", "des53", or "DmG_HacKeR666"). This person claims to have hacked your email account some time ago.

The email is sent using a "spoofing" method, which is used to shield information regarding the actual sender (who poses as someone else). In this case, the scammer uses the recipient's email address, and thus it might seem that you have sent this email to yourself.

According to this scammer, the computer has been infected with a trojan virus and a remote access tool has been installed. Therefore, this person is supposedly able to monitor your computer activity. Further, this person also has access to all of your social networks and email accounts, and has recorded your browsing history, contacts list, and photos and videos.

Furthermore, it is stated that a photo of you has been obtained, which was apparently taken using your webcam while you were visiting a pornographic website. An embarrassing photo of you will thus be sent to all of your contacts if you do not pay $500 in Bitcoins.

The deadline is 48 hours after reading the email. As mentioned in the introduction, "My nickname in darknet Email Scam" is a common scam. Your computer is not infected with any virus and none of the statements are accurate. Simply ignore and delete the received email. Never take these emails seriously.

Threat Summary:

Name	My Nickname In Darknet Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Symptoms	Unauthorized online purchases, changed online account passwords, identity theft, illegal access of one's computer.
Distribution methods	Deceptive emails, rogue online pop-up ads, search engine poisoning techniques, misspelled domains.
Damage	Loss of sensitive private information, monetary loss, identity theft.
Malware Removal (Windows)	To eliminate possible malware infections, scan your computer with legitimate antivirus software. Our security researchers recommend using Combo Cleaner. ▼ Download Combo Cleaner To use full-featured product, you have to purchase a license for Combo Cleaner. 7 days free trial available. Combo Cleaner is owned and operated by Rcs Lt, the parent company of PCRisk.com read more.

So I'm the hacker who broke your email, I'm a programmer who cracked your email, and My virus captured all your personal data are other examples of emails that scammers send to people.

You can see that they are very similar and serve an identical purpose: to trick people into paying scammers by making false statements about computer infections, humiliating photos, and so on. Some spam campaigns are used to trick people into opening attachments. These emails are presented as legitimate and often appear to be sent by well-known companies.

This is an attempt to make the message seem important. The attachments are supposedly bills, invoices, or other documents and often in the form of Microsoft Office documents (such as Word, Excel, etc), PDF, RAR, or .EXE (executable) files. These attachments are used to proliferate high-risk viruses (such as TrickBot, Emotet, AZORult, Adwind, etc.). 

The viruses are used to extract various personal/sensitive information such as bank account details, passwords and logins of various accounts, etc. This can lead to security, privacy, financial, and other similar problems. Sometimes viruses of this type open "backdoors" that make computers vulnerable to a number of other virus infections, including ransomware.

We receive a great deal of feedback from concerned users about this scam email. Here is the most popular question we receive:

Q: Hi pcrisk.com team, I received an email stating that my computer was hacked and they have a video of me. Now they are asking for a ransom in Bitcoins. I think this must be true because they listed my real name and password in the email. What should I do?

A: Do not worry about this email. Neither hackers nor cyber criminals have infiltrated/hacked your computer and there is no video of you watching pornography. Simply ignore the message and do not send any Bitcoins. Your email, name, and password was probably stolen from a compromised website such as  Yahoo (these website breaches are common). If you are concerned, you can check if your accounts have been compromised by visiting the haveibeenpwned website.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

As mentioned above, malicious attachments that are presented in spam email campaigns can do harm only when they are opened. If the attachment is a Microsoft Office document, it will also ask to enable macros commands. Once enabled, these give permission for malware to be downloaded and installed. Remember that, regardless of the attached file format, it cannot proliferate viruses if it is not opened.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Do not open email attachments that are sent from unrecognized, unknown, or suspicious email addresses. Download software using official and trustworthy websites (or other sources) and direct links. Avoid using third party downloaders, installers and other similar software to download or install other software.

These tools often are often monetized by promoting rogue applications. Install and download software with caution: check all "Custom", "Advanced" settings/options throughout the process. Dismiss/deselect any offers to install additional software and only then finish the download/installation procedure.

Do not use software updaters that are provided by third parties. Use official tools or implemented functions only. Other fake updaters might trick you into installing malware rather than the updates.

Use Microsoft Office 2010 or later, since these include the "Protected View" mode that can prevent downloaded potentially malicious attachments from installing/downloading malicious software. If you have already opened malicious attachments, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the "My nickname in darknet Email Scam" email message:

Subject: [user's email address] was hacked

Hello [user's email address]

My nickname in darknet is bruis09 (could be "higgins12", "kippar74", "keir43", "des53", "DmG_HacKeR666", etc.).
I'll begin by saying that I hacked this mailbox (please look on 'from' in your header) more than six months ago,
through it I infected your operating system with a virus (trojan) created by me and have been monitoring you for a long time.

Even if you changed the password after that - it does not matter, my virus intercepted all the caching data on your computer
and automatically saved access for me.

I have access to all your accounts, social networks, email, browsing history.
Accordingly, I have the data of all your contacts, files from your computer, photos and videos.

I was most struck by the intimate content sites that you occasionally visit.
You have a very wild imagination, I tell you!

During your pastime and entertainment there, I took screenshot through the camera of your device, synchronizing with what you are watching.
Oh my god! You are so funny and excited!

I think that you do not want all your contacts to get these files, right?
If you are of the same opinion, then I think that $500 is quite a fair price to destroy the dirt I created.

Send the above amount on my bitcoin wallet: 1MN7A7QqQaAVoxV4zdjdrnEHXmjhzcQ4Bq (could be 1NXNt72qfMhPZDffUEqryCYpEUzyR6LmgH, 1EZS92K4xJbymDLwG4F7PNF5idPE62e9XY, 1Fb4XSgZ43fAwwcURZ2kWAYmrPty3revZd or any other bitcoin waller address)
As soon as the above amount is received, I guarantee that the data will be deleted, I do not need it.

Otherwise, these files and history of visiting sites will get all your contacts from your device.
Also, I'll send to everyone your contact access to your email and access logs, I have carefully saved it!

Since reading this letter you have 48 hours!
After your reading this message, I'll receive an automatic notification that you have seen the letter.

I hope I taught you a good lesson.
Do not be so nonchalant, please visit only to proven resources, and don't enter your passwords anywhere!
Good luck!

Another variant of this email scam:

Text presented in this variant:

Subject: Your account has been hacked! You need to unlock.
Hello!
My nickname in darknet is hamid52.
I hacked this mailbox more than six months ago,
through it I infected your operating system with a virus (trojan) created by me and have been monitoring you for a long time.
Please check "from_address" for this email. You will see what I wrote this letter to you from yours account.
Even if you changed the password after that - it does not matter, my virus intercepted all the caching data on your computer
and automatically saved access for me.
I have access to all your accounts, social networks, email, browsing history.
Accordingly, I have the data of all your contacts, files from your computer, photos and videos.
I was most struck by the intimate content sites that you occasionally visit.
You have a very wild imagination, I tell you!
During your pastime and entertainment there, I took screenshot through the camera of your device, synchronizing with what you are watching.
Oh my god! You are so funny and excited!
I think that you do not want all your contacts to get these files, right?
If you are of the same opinion, then I think that $707 is quite a fair price to destroy the dirt I created.
Send the above amount on my BTC wallet (bitcoin): 13imy3S2nBKu5itBiik7ZAEz5KsDGS6FhG
As soon as the above amount is received, I guarantee that the data will be deleted, I do not need it.
Otherwise, these files and history of visiting sites will get all your contacts from your device.
Also, I'll send to everyone your contact access to your email and access logs, I have carefully saved it!
Since reading this letter you have 48 hours!
After your reading this message, I'll receive an automatic notification that you have seen the letter.
I hope I taught you a good lesson.
Do not be so nonchalant, please visit only to proven resources, and don't enter your passwords anywhere!
Good luck!

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▼ DOWNLOAD Combo Cleaner By downloading any software listed on this website you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. To use full-featured product, you have to purchase a license for Combo Cleaner. 7 days free trial available. Combo Cleaner is owned and operated by Rcs Lt, the parent company of PCRisk.com read more.

Quick menu:

• What is My Nickname In Darknet spam?
• Types of malicious emails.
• How to spot a malicious email?
• What to do if you fell for an email scam?

Types of malicious emails:

Phishing Emails

Most commonly, cybercriminals use deceptive emails to trick Internet users into giving away their sensitive private information, for example, login information for various online services, email accounts, or online banking information.

Such attacks are called phishing. In a phishing attack, cybercriminals usually send an email message with some popular service logo (for example, Microsoft, DHL, Amazon, Netflix), create urgency (wrong shipping address, expired password, etc.), and place a link which they hope their potential victims will click on.

After clicking the link presented in such email message, victims are redirected to a fake website that looks identical or extremely similar to the original one. Victims are then asked to enter their password, credit card details, or some other information that gets stolen by cybercriminals.

Emails with Malicious Attachments

Another popular attack vector is email spam with malicious attachments that infect users' computers with malware. Malicious attachments usually carry trojans that are capable of stealing passwords, banking information, and other sensitive information.

In such attacks, cybercriminals' main goal is to trick their potential victims into opening an infected email attachment. To achieve this goal, email messages usually talk about recently received invoices, faxes, or voice messages.

If a potential victim falls for the lure and opens the attachment, their computers get infected, and cybercriminals can collect a lot of sensitive information.

While it's a more complicated method to steal personal information (spam filters and antivirus programs usually detect such attempts), if successful, cybercriminals can get a much wider array of data and can collect information for a long period of time.

Sextortion Emails

This is a type of phishing. In this case, users receive an email claiming that a cybercriminal could access the webcam of the potential victim and has a video recording of one's masturbation.

To get rid of the video, victims are asked to pay a ransom (usually using Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency). Nevertheless, all of these claims are false - users who receive such emails should ignore and delete them.

How to spot a malicious email?

While cyber criminals try to make their lure emails look trustworthy, here are some things that you should look for when trying to spot a phishing email:

• Check the sender's ("from") email address: Hover your mouse over the "from" address and check if it's legitimate. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft, be sure to check if the email address is @microsoft.com and not something suspicious like @m1crosoft.com, @microsfot.com, @account-security-noreply.com, etc.
• Check for generic greetings: If the greeting in the email is "Dear user", "Dear @youremail.com", "Dear valued customer", this should raise suspiciousness. Most commonly, companies call you by your name. Lack of this information could signal a phishing attempt.
• Check the links in the email: Hover your mouse over the link presented in the email, if the link that appears seems suspicious, don't click it. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft and the link in the email shows that it will go to firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0... you shouldn't trust it. It's best not to click any links in the emails but to visit the company website that sent you the email in the first place.
• Don't blindly trust email attachments: Most commonly, legitimate companies will ask you to log in to their website and to view any documents there; if you received an email with an attachment, it's a good idea to scan it with an antivirus application. Infected email attachments are a common attack vector used by cybercriminals.

To minimise the risk of opening phishing and malicious emails we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows. 

Example of a spam email:

What to do if you fell for an email scam?

• If you clicked on a link in a phishing email and entered your password - be sure to change your password as soon as possible. Usually, cybercriminals collect stolen credentials and then sell them to other groups that use them for malicious purposes. If you change your password in a timely manner, there's a chance that criminals won't have enough time to do any damage.
• If you entered your credit card information - contact your bank as soon as possible and explain the situation. There's a good chance that you will need to cancel your compromised credit card and get a new one.
• If you see any signs of identity theft - you should immediately contact the Federal Trade Commission. This institution will collect information about your situation and create a personal recovery plan.
• If you opened a malicious attachment - your computer is probably infected, you should scan it with a reputable antivirus application. For this purpose, we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows.
• Help other Internet users - report phishing emails to Anti-Phishing Working Group, FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, National Fraud Information Center and U.S. Department of Justice.

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