I've been away during the past 3 or so days, dealing with a social parasite, a leech hiding behind many URLs plying his trade as a Hacker while attempting to extort money from other decent people.
Yes, I'm talking about RANSOMWARE! This creep sent me two emails, the first one was a simple one stating that You have been hacked!
Of course, I thought little of it since we all get tons of unsolicited emails every day.
Well friends, two days later, I get another email that was more to the point and certainly more Personal!!
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Subject: You E-MAIL hacked
From: "Anonymous Hacker"
I greet you!
I have bad news for you.
20/01/2019
(outside of USA since normally we do not use this date format...we prefer mm/dd/yyyy).
On this day I hacked your operating system and got full access to your account <
insert my email acct here>
On that day you account <
insert my email acct here> password was: <
my actual password here>
It is useless to change the password. My malware intercepts it every time.
How it was:
In the software of the router to which you were connected that day, there was a vulnerability.
I first hacked this router and placed my malicious code on it.
When you entered in the Internet, my trojan was installed on the operating system of your device.
After that, I made a full dump of my disk. (I have all your address book, history of viewing sites, files, phone numbers and addresses of all of your contacts).
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He/she then tells me that he looked at all the sites that I visit and saw that they were of "Adult nature", then he claims to have made screenshots of me on these intimate website by using the webcam on my computer.
That ought to be very interesting since I've had the camera lens taped since I first got the computer and set it up.
Then I saw some email notices thanking me for my inquiry to changing my Amazon password and my Facebook password.
Odd because I never requested those changes and I DO NOT use Facebook nor any other social media!!
This parasite then threatened me stating that if he/she does not get $230.00 USD in his account within 50 hours from the time I opened his email, he would send those "Adult files" to my family, friends, and colleagues.
He/she only accepts money in Bitcoin then gave me instructions on how to set up a Bitcoin account and to use his/her WALLET CODE: to transfer into.
Lastly, if payment was not made, he/she would also block my device (basically rendering my computer useless) and he would send all those "photos" to everyone.
I did try changing my email password by contacting my ISP only to find it was not accepted or correct the next time I tried.
I disconnected my computer, turned off everything completely.
Got a laptop and bought a new Router at the recommendation of many Internet sources and friends.
I did mention the email fiasco to my ISP who basically rendered that address useless. I still have some other addresses so I'm not totally in the dark.
Now I have to go back to all those sites and people who used that now-defunct email address and give them a new one. Oh, the joy of computers!
After copying everything I could think of there are just some things that have to be installed and a lot of that was not possible since my external backup was selective files and data, not install programs as such.
In the meantime, I ran as many scans locally (not being connected to the Internet) as I could and every one of them came back clean.
This led me to think that this lowlife had only grabbed my email address and its password. That's all! The rest was a BLUFF. There was no "Adult Photos of me" since I do not use the webcam at all!! A few other indicators led me to believe that this was indeed a scareware tactic in hope of gaining some easy Bitcoin! I don't use that either!
Of course, after payment all virus and photos, files, etc. hidden on a remote server, would "self-destruct". Right!
His last attempt to make him/her self seem "more human" was the advice that was given to me.
#######################################
"From now on, I advise you to use good antiviruses and update them regularly (several times a day)".
"Don't be mad at me, everyone had their own work.
Farewell"
#######################################
So now, Previous desktop computer is running along with a New Router and a lost email address and a call to my ISP cautioning them about their email security. Nothing else seems to have been compromised or violated, other than my sanity for 3 days!!
I would really love to find this parasite and insert my size 15 boot in a certain area or superglue to their fingers. I don't know...I'm so annoyed at this person it's hard to say what I'd do if I found them. NO, I did NOT send payment and neither should anyone who receives any kind of Ransomware!
Doing so just feeds them for their wrongdoing and increases the incentive for more miscreants of society to join them!!
Don't Feed the Animals!!