Pleasure Yourself Email Scam

What is "Pleasure Yourself"?

"Pleasure Yourself" is a spam campaign that scammers proliferate by sending an email to many people. The main purpose of this scam is to blackmail email recipients. Cyber criminals claim that they have infected the computer with a Trojan and the infection allowed them to record a compromising video of the victim.

They also threaten to proliferate this video if their ransom demands are not met within a specific time. In fact, there is nothing to worry about - this is a common scam that criminals hope some victims will believe. None of the claims are accurate and it should be ignored and not taken seriously.

Cyber criminals state in the "Pleasure Yourself" scam that the computer was infected with a Trojan when its recipient clicked an advertisement while visiting an adult website. According to the scammers, this Trojan (a malicious program) allowed them to monitor computing activity and gave access to the microphone, camera, and devices connected via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and so on.

They claim that they have monitored their victim for some time and during that time have recorded a compromising video of him/her - in their words - "pleasing yourself". In summary, these cyber criminals claim that they have compiled a video in which the recipient can be seen watching an adult video (the video itself can be seen as well).

The aforementioned Trojan also apparently allowed them to steal data such as email accounts, social media accounts, contacts, and so on. In the "Pleasure Yourself" scam, they provide a number of Bitcoin wallet addresses to transfer $650 within five days. If their demands are not met, they state that they will send the video to all of the contacts they have managed to steal.

Once the ransom is paid, they promise to delete the video. Furthermore, scammers urge people who receive this email not to contact anyone about it, otherwise they will proliferate the compromising video. As mentioned above, this is merely a scam. Do not trust these emails.

Threat Summary:

Name	Pleasure Yourself 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.

There are many email scams used to extort money from innocent people. Some examples include "I Contaminated Your Machine With A Virus", "You May Not Know Me", and "I'll Begin With The Most Important". Some spam campaigns are used to proliferate computer infections.

Generally, these emails contain attachments (or web links) that, once opened, download and install malicious programs. Some examples of programs that cyber criminals distribute using this method are Adwind, FormBook, Hancitor, and AZORult. Spam campaigns are also used to proliferate ransomware.

Therefore, having computers infected with malware of this type can cause serious problems such as financial loss, privacy issues, data loss, and so on.

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?

To infect computers through emails (spam campaigns), cyber criminals employ malicious attachments or web links that lead to malicious files. Note, however, that to cause damage, they must first be opened.

Attached files can be Microsoft Office documents (Excel, Word, and so on), archives such as ZIP, RAR, executables (.exe) files, PDF documents, JavaScript files, and so on. Frequently, cyber criminals attach MS Office documents. When opened, they demand permission to enable macros commands. Enabling them results in download and installation of computer infections.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Carefully check each email that contains web links or attachments. Do not open these attachments without making sure that it is safe to do so, especially if the email is received from an unknown/suspicious address. Note that these emails are usually presented as official, legitimate and important.

In many cases, scammers claim that recipients have won a prize, received a package, must confirm a funds transfer, and so on. They make these emails look tempting.

Have reputable anti-virus or anti-spyware software installed (and enabled). Software of this type usually detects and removes viruses, malicious programs, etc. before they can cause any damage. 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 "Pleasure Yourself" email message:

Subject: I have a video with you

Good evening,

we don’t think that it’s wrong to pleasure yourself from time to time.
Certain things are just best kept private, if your relatives and friends are confronted by this it will be something to worry about.
Something any person would be totally embarrassed with.
And will be having serious affects to your personal life and wellbeing.
For a period of time we have been monitoring your computer trough a trojan virus that has been installed by yourself and has infected your computer.
You have been infected by clicking on an advert on one of our infected pornographic websites.
A trojan virus gives us access to your computer and any device that is connected to it, whether it is trough wifi or bluetooth.
We have been monitoring your screen and everything you have been doing, trough a live feed, without you being aware of this.
We also have control over your camera and microphone which we can switch on and off whenever we want.
Any information that has been interesting or relevant to us has been stored privately.
For example: contacts, social media,emails,etc.
We have recorded a video where you can be seen pleasing yourself, and we have added the video you was watching as an split screen footage.
With one press of a button I can forward this video to all your contacts, social media, etc.
If you want to prevent this from happening transfer the amount of 650$ to the following bitcoin address !

Bitcoin address: 1Ncy5FKRUfgkbAK7PFcgUc9XtUDXwyYH6m, 18TBJB1gzJxwHvvGhrxFSsoTzGHRUyw5fK, 18eqFNTARsdhvmQd1VcLPAbxS7xV48n5ux, 15aYe8LXfRUup8ncsNYpNmj9rXUnecPMzW, 1Dezkn1miU6h6cYdWuoJVJoBxXuEMhgW38, 1E4WMuN9jZfcuu6yL3LmoMek4HNEenh7hB

Buying bitcoin is very easy and straightforward , just GOOGLE it !

As soon as payment has been submitted your details and video footage will be deleted.
We will give you a timeframe of 5 days to make this payment.
Failing to do so will leave you with the consequences that you have been made aware of.
We don’t make mistakes.
Reporting this is useless, it is impossible to track this email address and these emails have been sent via an external server abroad.
These accounts have been hacked.
If you make the stupid choice to do report this or contact anybody about this message we will directly release your footage and forward it,
any other things we obtained that can possibly harm you will be used against you too.
We will get notified as soon as this email has been opened, from that moment the clock starts running.
You have 5 days exactly not a minute longer.

With kind regards

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Quick menu:

• What is Pleasure Yourself 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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