Researchers Forcepoint reported a massive spam campaign aimed at extorting money from users through blackmail. Attackers do not use malicious software, but simply convince victims of the presence of compromising material and require a ransom of $ 320 in bitcoins.
Experts note that extortionists use only blackmail and personal data users do not have. Such a letter is quite easy to calculate, since all letters are constructed according to certain patterns:.
{Three random letters}: [{email of the recipient}] {Date and time} {Message text} Companies also suffer from such emails. Attackers threaten to carry out a DDoS attack on a corporate site and are required to pay a ransom so that the attack does not take place.
According to researchers, the peak of attacks occurred on August 11-18, 2017, but they continue and now. Attackers sent letters with threats to approximately 33,500 victims, most of whom live in France and Australia.