Porn blackmail scam targets Kiwis
When Napier woman Kim Saber received a threatening email that demanded she transfer $4000 worth of Bitcoin into an account or footage of her watching pornography would be exposed, she knew it was a scam.
Saber knew it was a scam ‘‘straight away’’ because of her religious beliefs.
‘‘We don’t watch porn and I have a really good relationship with my husband,’’ she said. ‘‘I mean, we work together, play together, do everything together, so I knew it was bullsh...’’
Saber printed off a copy of the email, which was sent to her about July 21, and began warning her neighbours about it.
‘‘I went to the mum next door that’s got two teenage boys, because that’s very easy. They come home from school and go on the internet, so she gave them a big lecture.’’
When Saber went to the police, she was told they had received ‘‘hundreds’’ of similar complaints’’.
‘‘I was really shocked. But then I got angry . . . because I’m not engaged in porn.’’
Saber was worried for the elderly, and other ‘‘naive’’ people who might be targeted.
‘‘The easy person that could be got is the person that’s quietly having a bit on the side and hasn’t told their wife, or when their wife is out, they have had a sneaky peek at some pornographic site,’’ she said.
‘‘They would be really worried, and they would pay the money.’’ Netsafe’s director of technology and partnerships, Sean Lyons, said that these email scams often included an old password that had likely been ascertained from a data leak.
CERT NZ’s (Computer Emergency Response Team’s) incident manager Erica Anderson said scams where people claimed to have access to webcams tended to go through spikes.
‘‘We know that scams like this prey on people being too embarrassed to seek help, so we assume that the reports we’ve received are only the tip of the iceberg.’’
Police said they had received reports of the scam from ‘‘several victims’’.