Do not trust the I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL sextortion scam

What is "I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL"?

Like many other sextortion emails, this one is used by scammers who try to trick recipients into paying to prevent distribution of humiliating videos (and personal information) that the criminals have supposedly recorded. Emails of this kind should never be trusted or taken seriously: all statements made by them are false.

Threat Summary:

Name	I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL Email Scam
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud.
Fake Claim	According to scammers, they have recorded a compromising video and will distribute it unless they are paid.
Cyber Criminal Cryptowallet Address	1CoRXK3iz58WZAnYwJ6RdYotzFABUB4v7a
Size of Ransom	US$900 (in Bitcoin)
Symptoms	Unauthorized online purchases, changed online account passwords, identity theft, illegal access of the 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.

Scammers claim that the computer was infected with a remote administration tool (RAT), which gave them access to all accounts, the microphone and webcam, and allowed them to monitor the screen. The email states that they have collected private data and recorded a compromising video, supposedly in which the recipient can be seen "satisfying himself".

They threaten to proliferate this video by sending it to all contacts, posting it on social networks and the Darknet unless they are paid US$900 in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency by making a transaction to a provided BTC wallet address. They encourage victims to make the payment within two days.

As mentioned, this is just one of the many email scams available, and it should not be trusted. These scammers have not infected your computer with any malware and/or a RAT, and the compromising video simply does not exist.

We receive a great deal of feedback from concerned users about this type of scam email. Here is the most popular question we receive (in this case, relating to a scam that claims to have obtained compromising videos or photos of the user):

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.

More examples of similar spam campaigns (email scams) are "The last time you visited a Porn website", "Hacker who has access to your operating system" and "You certainly do not know me". Typically, they are harmless and do not contain any website links or attachments that would lead to installation of malware.

There are, however, spam campaigns that do. Some examples of malicious programs that are proliferated through emails include TrickBot, Hancitor, Emotet and LokiBot.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Typically, cyber criminals proliferate malware via email by attaching malicious files or including website links that lead to file downloads. Examples of files that are often used to infect systems are MS Office and PDF documents, executable files (.exe), JavaScript files, and archive files such as ZIP, RAR.

Note that they can do harm only if recipients open them. For example, opened malicious Microsoft Office documents demand permission to enable editing/content or macros commands.

If allowed, the documents install malware. MS Office 2010 and older versions do not include Protected View mode. Therefore, if a malicious document is opened with an old version, it will infect systems without asking for additional permissions.

How to avoid installation of malware

Ignore irrelevant emails, especially if they contain attachments or web links and are received from unknown, suspicious addresses. It is not safe to download or install software through third party downloaders, installers, unofficial pages, Peer-to-Peer networks such as torrent clients, eMule, or other similar sources.

All files and programs should be downloaded from official websites and via direct download links. Furthermore, installed software must be updated using tools and/or implemented functions that are designed by official software developers, and not third party tools.

The same applies to activation of licensed, paid software. It is illegal to use unofficial tools. Furthermore, they often cause installation of malicious software.

Finally, we recommend that you regularly scan the operating system for threats with reputable antivirus or anti-spyware software and remove detected threats immediately. 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 "I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL" email message:

I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL

 

You have 24hs or I'm going to send the video to your contacts and post it on every socia1 network.

 

Or maybe I'm going to send it to a few selected contacts, so you understand this is not a joke.

 

I'm not going to wait anymore now that I know YOU READ MY MAIL.

 

I know your pass word is: -

 

Your computer was infected with my malware, RAT (Remmote Administration Tool), your browser wasn"t updated / patched, in such case it"s enough to just vissit some website where my iframe is placed to get automatically infected.

 

My malware gave me full acccess and control over your computer, meaning, I got acccess to all your accounts (see pass word above) and I can see everything on your screen, turn on your camera or microphone and you won"t even notice about it.

 

I collected all your privvate data and I RECORDED YOU (through your web-cam) SATISFYING YOURSELF!

 

After that I removed my malware to not leave any traces.

 

I can send the video to all your contacts, post it on socia1 network, publish it on the whole web, including the darknet, where the sick people are, I can publish all I found on your computer everywhere!

 

Only you can prevent me from doing this and only I can help you out in this situation.

 

Transfer exactly 900$ with the current bitcoin (BTC) price to my bitcoin address.

 

It"s a very good offer, compared to all that horrible shhit that will happen if I publish everything!

 

You can easily buuy bitcoin here: www.paxful.com , www.coingate.com , www.coinbase.com , or check for bitcoin ATM near you, or Google for other exchanger.
You can send the bitcoin directly to my address, or create your own wallet first here: www.login.blockchain.com/en/#/signup/ , then receive and send to mine.

 

My bitcoin address is: 1CoRXK3iz58WZAnYwJ6RdYotzFABUB4v7a

 

Copy and paste my address, it"s (cAsE-sEnSEtiVE)

 

I give you 2 days time to transfer the bitcoin!

 

As I got acccess to this email account, I will know if this email has already been read.
If you get this email multiple times, it"s to make sure you read it, my mailer script has been configured like that and after payment you can ignore it.

 

After receiving the payment, I will remove everything and you can life your live in peace like before.

Next time update your browser before browsing the web!

Instant automatic malware removal: Manual threat removal might be a lengthy and complicated process that requires advanced IT skills. Combo Cleaner is a professional automatic malware removal tool that is recommended to get rid of malware. Download it by clicking the button below:
▼ 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 I KNOW YOU OPENED MY LAST MAIL 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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