E-mail scam seeking Bitcoin hits Ottawa area
Posted Jul 27, 2018 06:00:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Ottawa Police Service has recently received several complaints from residents, about an emerging e-mail scam, and its advising the public not to respond to it.
In this scam, people receive a personal e-mail from an anonymous sender. The message tells the user that their password was captured by malware, and the sender actually provides the captured password to the potential victim.
Investigators believe that the e-mail address and password are likely obtained by the fraudsters from a website previously used by the recipient.
Some victims have told police that the password was actually an old one that they have not used in years.
In the e-mail, the sender informs the potential victim that they have video of their activities while they were visiting pornographic sites and further threatens to release the video to the recipient's contact list if a quantity of Bitcoins are not transferred to a specific Bitcoin account within one day.
The Ottawa Police Service advises the public not to reply to these e-mails.
The following prevention tips are suggested:
– Make sure not to use the same password for all of your Internet activities;
– Change your password(s) regularly;
– Make sure to have valid anti-virus and malware software and perform regular scans.
