No you haven’t been caught watching porn

The Better Business Bureau has learned about a scam that involves personal emails and presents victims with threats of revealing they watched or downloaded porn.

The latest scam that’s going around is the scammers will contact people and claim they have hacked their computer and activated their webcam, allowing them to access all the porn sites the victim has visited. The scammer then threatens to send that information to family, friends, co-workers, and more if a payment is not made.

The West Vancouver Police recently issued a press release about this.

The following email was sent to a BBB employee: “You do not know me and you’re most likely thinking why you are getting this email, right? Let me tell you, I placed a malware on the adult video clips . . . While you were watching video clips, I made a double screen video. 1st part displays the video you were watching, and next part shows the recording of your web camera.”

The scammer then said, “Right after that, my software gathered every one of your contacts from your Messenger, FB, and email . . . In my opinion, $1,900 is a reasonable price tag for our little secret. You’ll make the payment by Bitcoin. You now have one day to make the payment.”

“We just want people to be aware that this is out there,” says Evan Kelly, Senior Communications Adviser for BBB serving Mainland BC. “The scammer is simply after a quick reaction from their victim to click and follow links where payment is made. Even if you’ve never been to a porn site, you can still get this phishing email.”

If you are threatened with this, do not click on any unknown links or download any attachments. Doing so could lead you to a fake site designed to trick you into giving up personal information or can download malware to your computer or mobile device.

Protect Yourself: — Never send money! — Do a security check on your computer or if you haven’t done so already, install security software.

— Change passwords immediately. — Don’t respond to threats. — Never send compromising images of yourself to anyone, no matter who they are/or who they say they are.

— Do not open attachments from people you do not know.

— Turn off your electronic devices and web cameras when you are not using them.

— BBB