‘Sextortion’ on the rise: Cyber criminals blackmailing porn site visitors for bitcoin
The Maharashtra Police said that they have observed a growing trend of cyber fraudsters sending extortion e-mails to those visiting porn sites.
The cyber wing of the state police said that the fraudsters are sending e-mails to those viewing porn content on such websites, asking them to create payment in bitcoins, failing that they would make public their video of using adult websites. This has come to be known as 'sextortion', a combo of what sex and extortion.
Balsing Rajput, Superintendent of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, said, “The fraudsters place some malware on porn websites. When someone accesses such a niche site, the fraudsters have the ability to breach the data of that person. The browser then starts working as a remote control desktop, using which they access the visitor’s display screen and get the contact amounts of his friends, his contacts on social media and e-mails.”
The cyber fraudsters then send an e-mail to an individual threatening that the individual has been captured on the webcam viewing porn sites and the video will be released unless a payment is made using bitcoins, he said.
Such e-mails have become rampant of late, he said. “In one such mail to a user, the fraudster demanded $2900 and threatened that if he failed to pay it, then his video, that was made out of his webcam, will be sent to his friends, relatives and colleagues,” the official said.
