Those who fall for the scam pay a small sign-up fee to get a “Twitter Cash Starter Kit,” writes Joan Goodchild of CSO Online. “The end user ends up forking out money to do this work and they pay money to some rogue company,” explains Ryan Barnett, principal security researcher on Akamai’s threat research team.

A new email scam is making the rounds with bogus claims about pornography use to extort money.

In this scam, scammers email you claiming that they’ve stolen your password and have created videos of you using adult web sites. On top of that, they claim to have all of your contacts.

The good news it’s a scam. But it can be terrifying for some. One woman, who was “in tears,” called it “very frightening,” according to a report in Canada’s CBC.

A typical email reads something like this: “I know your password” and “I have installed malware on an adult video site.” Then the claim gets more elaborate. “While you were watching video clips, your web browser began operating as a RDP (Remote Desktop) that has a key logger,” is a typical threat.

This, the scammers claim, gives them access to your display screen and webcam. Then they drop the hammer, usually something to the effect: “If you ignore this, I will send your video to all of your contacts.” Of course, they give you a way out: pay them money – usually $1,000 or more – and they promise to delete the video.

That’s the gist of the many forms of this email that have appeared in forums, blogs and on Twitter. For example, one threatening email – similar to the wording above – was posted by ThreeShield Information Security, a Canadian firm.

Linked to old breached passwords

What makes it scarier is, the scammers do you have your password in some cases, though it can be an old one.

“If you received an email like this one, we have good news and bad news for you: You weren't caught looking at porn; however, your LinkedIn password was exposed 6 years ago,” according to a blog post by ThreeShield.

The security firm concluded that the scammer is harvesting email addresses and passwords from a 2012 LinkedIn hack that breached over 100 million accounts.

Threeshield added that they have tracked 9 bitcoin addresses associated with the scam, in which victims have paid a total of 4.61461859 Bitcoins or approximately $38,000.

FBI issues warning of adultery blackmail scam

This week, the FBI in Jacksonville, Florida warned about a similar blackmail scam that threatens to reveal information about acts of adultery.

“The scammer threatens to reveal the information to the recipient’s spouse, family and friends, and demands payment in exchange for secrecy. In an effort to avoid detection, the scammer often insists on being paid in bitcoin, a virtual currency that is legitimate but difficult to track,” the FBI said in a statement this week.

The FBI adds that this and similar scams will continue to evolve.

Once again, the official EOS website has been targeted and an almost identical scam copy has been created, but with the addition of a part that does not exist, namely the one related to a phantom 100 million EOS distribution.

The modus operandi of the criminals has become quite clear to users: they create an account, load it with a smart contract scam, they borrow resources from REX and start sending either small amounts of EOS or a token created to confuse the victim, as in the case of the Voice token.

The scam website that gives away EOS

In this case, we can see how a new account was created, 4 days ago, which is called blockonenews, (there is a strong link between gu3timzxgmge and b1refundfund, where the latter received funds from the Binance exchange and so it is possible to identify it) and is using the memo field to send the following message:

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“EOS Reallocation Program @ get-eos.io”.

If we go to the scam website, created on July 30th, 2020, we can see how it is pretty similar to the original, but the first thing we see is this message, inciting to participate in the scam:

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It may almost seem like something legitimate since the criminals refer to a piece of news of a year ago about the proposal to reallocate resources in EOSio, but clearly, it isn’t.

Evidently, the criminals are in several official chats and actively follow the discussions to have more information and build scams that seems plausible.

If we keep exploring the website, we are asked to link our wallet. A list of wallets compatible with this blockchain is also provided, both for desktop and mobile, and additionally, the scam website asks us for our private key.

After trying to connect our wallet, we’ll see a “claim” button and also how many EOS we’re entitled to, inviting us to sign the next transaction.

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Signing the transaction triggers the trap because it would give the criminal the authority to change the account keys and then remove the victim from their own account.

Online Casino Hub Twitter Scam Site

It is therefore necessary never to interact with platforms that give something away, especially if they come from big projects, because it is difficult, if not impossible, that there is a giveaway of this magnitude.

In addition, the amount of tokens offered is so high that it looks ridiculous.

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Another strategy that has been adopted over time is to hide transactions of small amounts in order to hide the memos since some participate on purpose to insert a memo and warn users that it is a scam.