‘Programmer who cracked your email’ tries to blackmail you for Bitcoin

One of the latest email phishing scams claims that a programmer has cracked your email and device about half a year ago and insist you pay them a ransom. The scammer claims that you entered a password on one of the insecure sites you visited and that they caught it. The email message then shows you your email address and password at the moment of the alleged interception.

If you received an email message that says “I’m a programmer who cracked your email account and device about half year ago” and appears to be sent to you from your own email address, ignore it. The message is fraudulent and no one actually hacked your email account and device.

The email message might be frightening because it will appear as if it was sent from your own account and your password (previous password or current password) will be mentioned numerous times. However, your email address was not accessed. It was spoofed by a third-party service such as anonymailer.

The purpose of the email is to trick you into paying a certain amount of Bitcoin to a BTC wallet (1PL9ewB1y3iC7EyuePDoPxJjwC4CgAvWTo or other) in order to erase data they claim to have collected about you.

The email says that you have 48 hours to make a payment and if you do not they will send all of your contacts “crazy shots with your dirty life.” They also claim to have placed a trojan on your device that is on auto alert.

Email message campaigns like this have been making circulation following recent breaches that occurred on websites like LinkedIn and Adobe. To see where your email information may have been leaked from check out https://haveibeenpwned.com/. You can input your email address to locate where your information was leaked.

Here’s what is written in the email message:

Subject: [your email address] has password [your password]. Password must be changed
From [your email address]
To [your password]

Hello!

I’m a programmer who cracked your email account and device about half year ago.
You entered a password on one of the insecure site you visited, and I catched it.
Your password from [your email address] on moment of crack: [your password]

Of course you can will change your password, or already made it.
But it doesn’t matter, my rat software update it every time.

Please don’t try to contact me or find me, it is impossible, since I sent you an email from your email account.

Through your e-mail, I uploaded malicious code to your Operation System.
I saved all of your contacts with friends, colleagues, relatives and a complete history of visits to the Internet resources.
Also I installed a rat software on your device and long tome spying for you.

You are not my only victim, I usually lock devices and ask for a ransom.
But I was struck by the sites of intimate content that you very often visit.

I am in shock of your reach fantasies! Wow! I’ve never seen anything like this!
I did not even know that SUCH content could be so exciting!

So, when you had fun on intime sites (you know what I mean!)
I made screenshot with using my program from your camera of yours device.
After that, I jointed them to the content of the currently viewed site.

Will be funny when I send these photos to your contacts! And if your relatives see it?
BUT I’m sure you don’t want it. I definitely would not want to …

I will not do this if you pay me a little amount.
I think $843 is a nice price for it!

I accept only Bitcoins.
My BTC wallet: 1PL9ewB1y3iC7EyuePDoPxJjwC4CgAvWTo

If you have difficulty with this – Ask Google “how to make a payment on a bitcoin wallet”. It’s easy.
After receiving the above amount, all your data will be immediately removed automatically.
My virus will also will be destroy itself from your operating system.

My Trojan have auto alert, after this email is looked, I will be know it!

You have 2 days (48 hours) for make a payment.
If this does not happen – all your contacts will get crazy shots with your dirty life!
And so that you do not obstruct me, your device will be locked (also after 48 hours)

Do not take this frivolously! This is the last warning!
Various security services or antiviruses won’t help you for sure (I have already collected all your data).

Here are the recommendations of a professional:
Antiviruses do not help against modern malicious code. Just do not enter your passwords on unsafe sites!

I hope you will be prudent.
Bye.

Here’s a second version of the email message:

Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
From Mail Delivery System
To [your email address]

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

hanea.rasezine@gmail.com
(ultimately generated from [your email address])
host smtp.mailchannels.net [54.213.157.104]
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
550 5.7.1 [CS] Message blocked. If this is a false positive, please report this to your hosting service provider. See https://console.mailchannels.net/insights/bounce?auid=[email host]&sender=[your email address]&txid=0b8172f465b3ca78
Reporting-MTA: dns; az1-ls3.a2hosting.com

Action: failed
Final-Recipient: rfc822;hanea.rasezine@gmail.com
Status: 5.0.0
Remote-MTA: dns; smtp.mailchannels.net
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.7.1 [CS] Message blocked. If this is a false positive, please report this to your hosting service provider. See https://console.mailchannels.net/insights/bounce?auid=[email host&sender=[your email address]&txid=0b8172f465b3ca78
Subject [your email address] has password [your password]. Password must be changed
From [your email address]
To [your password]
Date 2018-10-27 04:06
Hello!

I’m a programmer who cracked your email account and device about half year ago.
You entered a password on one of the insecure site you visited, and I catched it.
Your password from [your email address] on moment of crack: [your password]

Of course you can will change your password, or already made it.
But it doesn’t matter, my rat software update it every time.

Please don’t try to contact me or find me, it is impossible, since I sent you an email from your email account.

Through your e-mail, I uploaded malicious code to your Operation System.
I saved all of your contacts with friends, colleagues, relatives and a complete history of visits to the Internet resources.
Also I installed a rat software on your device and long tome spying for you.

You are not my only victim, I usually lock devices and ask for a ransom.
But I was struck by the sites of intimate content that you very often visit.

I am in shock of your reach fantasies! Wow! I’ve never seen anything like this!
I did not even know that SUCH content could be so exciting!

So, when you had fun on intime sites (you know what I mean!)
I made screenshot with using my program from your camera of yours device.
After that, I jointed them to the content of the currently viewed site.

Will be funny when I send these photos to your contacts! And if your relatives see it?
BUT I’m sure you don’t want it. I definitely would not want to …

I will not do this if you pay me a little amount.
I think $843 is a nice price for it!

I accept only Bitcoins.
My BTC wallet: 1PL9ewB1y3iC7EyuePDoPxJjwC4CgAvWTo

If you have difficulty with this – Ask Google “how to make a payment on a bitcoin wallet”. It’s easy.
After receiving the above amount, all your data will be immediately removed automatically.
My virus will also will be destroy itself from your operating system.

My Trojan have auto alert, after this email is looked, I will be know it!

You have 2 days (48 hours) for make a payment.
If this does not happen – all your contacts will get crazy shots with your dirty life!
And so that you do not obstruct me, your device will be locked (also after 48 hours)

Do not take this frivolously! This is the last warning!
Various security services or antiviruses won’t help you for sure (I have already collected all your data).

Here are the recommendations of a professional:
Antiviruses do not help against modern malicious code. Just do not enter your passwords on unsafe sites!

I hope you will be prudent.
Bye.

As you can see, the email can appear legitimate to many people. But, the same message has been sent around the internet to many people (word-for word) and there have been many campaigns like it in the past. The previous version of this scam claimed that a hacker who cracked your email. Even if you have never visited an “intimate” website, you will still receive the same message. Even if your device does not have a camera, they will still claim to have recorded you through your camera.

Do not pay BTC to the scammer and do not reply to the fraudulent email message. The only thing you need to do is change the password to your email address and other accounts you have for safe measure.

The email message does not mean that your computer is infected with malware; However, if you would like to scan your computer for malware and other potentially malicious files from your computer we recommended to use Malwarebytes. Here are some instructions to do so:

1. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware software to scan your computer and remove malicious files and potentially unwanted programs.

2. To install the program, click the file you just downloaded. It can usually be located in the Download folder.

3. A window that says “Welcome to the Malwarebytes Setup Wizard” will appear. Click Agree and Install to begin the installation. Once complete, click Finish.

4. Now the Malwarebytes is installed, open the program and click the Scan Now button – or go to the Scan tab and click the Start Scan button.

3. When the scan is complete click the Quarantine Selected button.

4. If Malwarebytes says “All selected items have been removed successfully. A log file has been saved to the logs folder. Your computer needs to be restarted to complete the removal process. Would you like to restart now?” click the Yes button to restart your computer.