Over the last few weeks there has been a surge in scam activity.
One in particular that is worrying everyone goes something like this:
“I know, password, is your password, you may not me…”
What makes this email (scam) all the more worrying is that often they include one of your actual passwords. They do this to give you the impression that they have all your passwords and all your data. They even claim to have access to your actual email.
It is – mostly – crap.
What they have is your email address and likely only ONE password that was used ages ago to access a website you last used when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister.
Ah, but where did they get that password from if not from my Mac?
I am glad you asked. What they have is information from a particular hack… not of your Mac, but rather of a website you signed up to once. In this article I listed a website that will check your email address and give you all the places your username (usually your email address) and a password was hacked and sold around the dark web to these dogs that (no wait, that is an insult to dogs… lets just say pond scum) go around making your life a misery.
They then use this information to try and make you think they have more on you than they do.
Should you worry? No. Should you pay them what they ask? Absolutely not!
What you should do is go back to this website and if you find that you have used this username and password combination somewhere else, go to those sites and change your password.
This website is also a decent read but they do tend to overwhelm you a bit.
Here also is another reminder of – in my view – the best way to deal with all scams.
1 comment
Thank you for that – assumed it was a scam, but glad to have that confirmed . I have had 3 of these emails in the last month, threatening to show video shots of me watching porn (I don’t!)to all my contacts and asking for $9000, then $1000, than $800 – presumably as the info is passed down the buyers! The password is an old Facebook one – Fb alerted me about 3 years ago that someone was trying to hack my account, and so I changed the password. I cannot remember using it on another site, but will check the sources.