2019 – How I accidentally thwarted supposed hackers
(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date. This was published on December 12, 2019.)
Trust me – I have NO expertise at this type of scam, but maybe this’ll help somebody who’s wary of an outsider’s ability to get into your computer and control its webcam.
In the last 14 months, I’ve gotten 42 scam spam emails – including one in Chinese – that are variations of this one:
I hacked you and your devices!
Hello!
As you may have noticed, I sent this message from your account.
This means that I have full access to your device and accounts. I’ve been watching you for a few months now.
The fact is that you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.
After that, I made a full dump of your disk (I have all your address book, history of viewing sites, all files, phone numbers and addresses of all your contacts).
If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Virus gives me full access and control your devices.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.
Why your antivirus did not detect malware? answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that your antivirus is silent.
I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video that you watched.
With one click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts.
If you want to prevent this, transfer the amount of $772 to my bitcoin address
(if you do not know how to do this, write to Google: “Buy Bitcoin”).
My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 1AirieZr8Ax9gUjZhyVeZqJzGaAkvUEBqq
After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear me again.
I give you 48 hours to pay.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work when you see this letter.
Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.
If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.
Most of these emails have seemingly come from my site’s email address (“Hmmm………..I don’t remember sending this to myself.”) and the demanded money is always some unusual number – never like $600 or $850.
Anyway, they all have me over a barrel because all I do 24 hours a day is “satisfy” myself within sight of my computer’s – or my tablet’s – camera (boy, am I sore……….and tired!).
Oh, wait! When I got this computer 4 years ago, it was my first one with a webcam. This may sound strange for a photographer, but I had no interest in (and didn’t trust) that cam, so I looked for an easy way to disable it in case any of these “threats” were real.
Of course, eBay turned out to have the solution……………and cheaply:
Yep – black adhesive dots that cost me 4 or 5 bucks at the time and are now 7 bucks (https://tinyurl.com/DotsWebcamCovers). You can see that I’ve used 2 so far (one for each device) with enough left over to last until I’m at least 140 – when I’d be ecstatic if I could still be the subject of the video these people say they’re going to blackmail me with. ADDED BONUS: you guys won’t be around to see it!
So, if you’re not addicted to your computer’s camera – and you can always peel the sticker off and replace it with another after FaceTiming with someone – invest in black dots because the technology to do what these pseudo-hackers threaten DOES exist!
Lastly, expect a video of me soon because I just realized that I ignored the warning in the above email’s last sentence.
I’m not worried………..I look good in black.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
I got threat #43 today and it’s even funnier! Try this on for size:
At the moment, I have harvested a solid dirt… on you…
I know what you like hard funs (adult sites).
Oh, yes .. I’m know your secret life, which you are hiding from everyone.
Oh my God, what are your like… I saw THIS … Oh, you dirty naughty person …
I took photos and videos of your most passionate funs with adult content, and synchronized them in real time with the image of your camera.
Believe it turned out very high quality!
“HARD FUNS”? Seriously?
Somebody else must have received this and snarked about it, so I googled it………………39,000 hits!
I haven’t dived into it yet, but I DID read one you might like: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2175580-i-know-what-you-like-the-hard-funs
Today’s clown wants $803 from me. Hmmmm……………I wonder what country’s currency converts to that number from a nice round local figure.
There’s a UK series called Black Mirror. It’s a very intense show and I think it is where these scammers got the idea from. The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago. Nothing happened.
How aggravating is that?!!! Sorry Bob!