SCAM EMAILS

Over the past few months I have received a number of emails threatening me with ransom messages if I do not pay into a bitcoin account, I have now received a similar email in to my rearcommodore email box, so I am writing this to offer some protection to our members of the club.

I am a member of North Yorkshire Community Messaging, where I get emails from the Police regarding missing people, asking for information regarding crime and scam email campaigns, please find below a copy of an email they sent me on the 4th of January this year.

“Every month I receive a list from Action Fraud as to the frauds and scams reported in the North Yorkshire area. A scam which appears to be doing the rounds at the minute is where the victim is targeted via email claiming that their computer has been ‘hacked’ and that the hacker has been monitoring the victims online activity. They will claim the victim has been visiting adult sites and that all this has been monitored. The scammer will then state that unless payment is made (usually in Bitcoin) then the victims activities will be circulated on social media as well as the victims computer being ‘formatted’ (i.e. all data being erased). As you can imagine, this causes the recipient of the message some concern. Below is advice from our Cybercrime unit as to what to do in relation to these emails:
“The victim’s computer is not at risk of being formatted , the password has been compromised in multiple data breaches. A person can see this for themselves by entering their email address into www.haveibeenpwned.com. That is why it is very important for users to change their passwords. We would recommend using password manager software such as LastPass, Dashlane or one of the many other legitimate versions and also enabling two factor authentication. Advice on these and other security tips can be found on www.getsafeonline.org.
Unfortunately there is very little a person can do to block these emails as the suspects are constantly changing the origin accounts that the emails are coming from and in the latest versions are making it appear as though it is originating from the victim’s own account”.

The main thing is not to panic and DO NOT make any payment to these scammers”

Best regards

Paul Lester

Rear Commodore SYC