News
FBI Warns Against Data Breach Extortion
July 2016 by Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4
Internet criminals are using fresh news of big data breaches (like Wendy’s last week) to send people threatening emails. These emails claim the criminals have confidential information about you that they will send to your employer, friends and family using social media. They threaten with possible divorce, court proceedings, losing your job, or worse.
The FBI warned that internet lowlifes are exploiting these data breaches by threatening to expose the victim’s personal information to their employer, friends and family using social media unless the targeted person agrees to pay a ransom in Bitcoin. The recipients are typically given a short deadline. The ransom amount ranges from 2 to 5 bitcoins or approximately 250 to 1,200 dollars.
Lists of "fraud suckers" get sold online, and employees that fall for these attacks are going to be a future risk for themselves, their personal- and work environments as they can be blackmailed by other internet criminals. The FBI released some examples of extortion emails:
“Unfortunately your data was leaked in a recent corporate hack and I now have your information. I have also used your user profile to find your social media accounts. Using this I can now message all of your friends and family members.”
“If you would like to prevent me from sharing this information with your friends and family members (and perhaps even your employers too) then you need to send the specified bitcoin payment to the following address.”
“If you think this amount is too high, consider how expensive a divorce lawyer is. If you are already divorced then I suggest you think about how this information may impact any ongoing court proceedings. If you are no longer in a committed relationship then think about how this information may affect your social standing amongst family and friends.”
“We have access to your Facebook page as well. If you would like to prevent me from sharing this dirt with all of your friends, family members, and spouse, then you need to send exactly 5 bitcoins to the following address.”
“We have some bad news and good news for you. First, the bad news, we have prepared a letter to be mailed to the following address that details all of your activities including your profile information, your login activity, and credit card transactions. Now for the good news, You can easily stop this letter from being mailed by sending 2 bitcoins to the following address.”
