Threatening Emails

[Dawn-13]

I have on two occasions now received emails stating that they have access to my accounts and threatening to send information to my contacts unless I Send them bitcoin. Has anyone else had any experience of this.  It is quite upsetting 

dawn

[Andrew-G]

Sounds like a classic email scam.  Written to create panic and a sense of urgency, hoping you'll act before stopping to think.  Won't be targeted at you, just sent out in the millions by scumbags (usually in crime-hole countries like India, Nigeria, Russia, and the more backward parts of Eastern Europe), and singularly unlikely that they do have access to your accounts, your data or your browsing history.  

Report this to the inappropriately named ActionFraud.  They won't do anything because government policy is that online fraud is essentially unpoliced, and the laws of this country are not enforced, but the ActionFraud call centre agent may be able to give you reassurance that this can be safely ignored, and offer some advice around ensuring that relevant accounts remain safe.  

[coenoby]

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@Dawn-13 wrote:

I have on two occasions now received emails stating that they have access to my accounts and threatening to send information to my contacts unless I Send them bitcoin.

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As @Andrew-G has said, variations of this scam have been going on in many countries for years. In reality the sender really knows nothing about you except an email address and a password related to an online site you use.

Here's what the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) say about this particular scam:   https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/sextortion-scams-how-to-protect-yourself  The "What to do" section is probably the key thing to focus on.  Here's more information on the scam if you are interested  https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/beware-of-blackmail-and-sextortion-emails-threatening-to-expose... 

My top tips would be:

1. you should forward the email to report@phishing.gov.uk
2. If the scam email includes one of your passwords check on the "Have I Been Pwned" website to see which databreach(s) you have been affected by. 
3. To do that enter your email address here https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and if it comes up with a  "Oh no — pwned!" message, scroll down to the bottom of that page and it will list the sites where your email address was stolen up from.
4. You should then go and reset the password for your account on that site or sites. (For example an email address of mine shows it was compromised by a data leak several years ago on the Dropbox cloud storage service.)
5. As an aside, make sure that you do not use the same password on multiple websites. Using the same password makes it easy for criminals to hit every online service you.

In short, the emails you are getting are in themselves not threat to you at all.  However, they do provide a timely warning to check on your password security for all your online accounts.

I hope that's constructive and helpful advice.

Coenoby

[Dawn-13]

Thank you for taking the time to give me all this information.

Dawn

[Dawn-13]

Thank you I am going to follow your advice.

dawn

[Ilyas_Y]

Hi @Dawn-13, thanks for reaching out to us and a warm welcome to the Virgin Media forums. I'm sorry to hear about the issues with the email you are facing.

We’re aware that a small number of customers reported that they had received an unexpected email regarding a password change. We have investigated the issue and locked affected accounts. To unlock an account customers should now contact our customer care team on 0345 454 1111 to set up a new password. We apologise for any disruption this has caused.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.