Remove ” ChaosCC hacker group ” email scam

The ” ChaosCC hacker group ” email is a generic sextortion scam email that falsely claims your computer is infected with malware that allowed its operators to turn on your microphone and camera to make a video of you watching pornography. The email demands payment to not release the video publicly. Paying would be a waste of money because the email is a scam.

 

 

Sextortion scams are very common and most users will have received at least one, though they usually land in the spam folder so users may not even notice them. While they may be operated by different scam groups, they all follow the same pattern and look more or less the same.

First off, sextortion emails try to alarm users as much as possible with threatening subject lines. If users fall for it and open the email, they will get even more alarmed. The emails claim the recipients’ computers have been infected with malware, which supposedly allowed the sender to create an explicit video of the recipient watching pornography.

This particular ” ChaosCC hacker group ” email scam has a subject line of “Your accounts was hacked by criminal group”, which is bound to alarm many users if they happen to see it. The sender introduces themselves as a representative of the ChaosCC hacker group . They were supposedly able to get access to your email account after hacking your email provider’s servers. Using your email account, these hackers claim to have also infected your devices. They also claim to have access to all your messengers. Furthermore, they threaten users with videos of them supposedly watching pornography. They claim to have filmed you watching pornography via your webcam and threaten to send it to all your contacts unless you agree to pay $700 in Bitcoin to one of the provided wallet addresses.

The full contents of the email are below:

Hello!

I am a representative of the ChaosCC hacker group.
In the period from 03/06/2019 to 25/08/2019 we got access to your account by hacking one of the mail servers.

You already changed the password?
Sumptuously! But my program fixes this every time. And every time I know your new password!

Using access to your account, it turned out to be easy to infect the OS of your device.

At the moment, all your contacts are known to us. We also have access to your messengers and to your correspondence.
All this information is already stored with us.

We are also aware of your intimate adventures on the Internet.
We know that you adore adult sites and we know about your sexual addictions.
You have a very interesting and special taste (you understand what I mean).

While browsing these sites, your device’s camera automatically turns on.
Video-record you and what you watch is being save.
After that, the video clip is automatically saved on our server.

At the moment, several analogy video records have been collected.
From the moment you read this letter, after 60 hours,
all your contacts on this email box and in your instant messengers will receive these clips and files with your correspondence.

If you do not want this, transfer 700$ to our Bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet: 1KE1EqyKLPzLWQ3BhRz2g1MHh5nws2TRk, 1EbJGYEfMvH9fdMrohwNsa3fyqwyMM6eaa, 32KrteYfpSvNYBRXn1KfmPnsc2KUmoi4JV, 3BTJgPA8tSBAdao9E7yabDBa16oSqAzNt4, 3LuGuAXuycmpDFyumPbkdgqTdA2wUBhceB, 3BsSv1ieSQ6FQnS1JUhWDiZ4SZmVXi6Yj1, 15178QQtWpx154LvTMzLSGEhqgsKs9CKdn
I guarantee that we will then destroy all your secrets!

As soon as the money is in our account – your data will be immediately destroyed!
If no money arrives, files with video and correspondence will be sent to all your contacts.

You decide… Pay or live in hell out of shame…

We believe that this whole story will teach you how to use gadgets properly!
Everyone loves adult sites, you’re just out of luck.
For the future – just cover a sticker your device’s camera when you visit adult sites!

Take care of yourself!

For unsuspecting users, these sextortion emails may seem very real and alarming. However, they are always fake, no matter how convincing they seem. Scammers use various tactics to pressure users into paying, including mocking the recipient and their supposed pornography-viewing habits. The threat to send explicit videos associated with the recipient is also an effective tactic and can work even on users who have never visited an adult website.

Sextortion email scams are very low-effort, which allows malicious actors to constantly run them in the background while performing more sophisticated scams.

Why did you receive a sextortion scam email?

Malicious actors buy email addresses from various hacker forums, where they end up after being leaked by various services users sign up for. Therefore, if you have received a sextortion email, there’s a high chance that your email address has been leaked. Many services have very poor security, which allows cybercriminals to get in and steal data. Stolen email addresses are sold on hacker forums, where other malicious actors purchase them. You can check whether your email address has been leaked on haveibeenpwned . Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do if it has been leaked, though you can at least be cautious with unsolicited emails, especially if they contain attachments or links.

To make sextortion emails more credible, some scammers also reveal users’ passwords. This scare tactic is very effective because if users have never encountered such scams in the past, they would be confused as to how the senders managed to obtain their passwords if not because of malware on their computers.

Seeing your password revealed by an unknown person in an email will certainly cause alarm. However, there’s a simple explanation for how malicious actors can get users’ passwords. Passwords and all kinds of other personal data are acquired by malicious actors in the same way as email addresses. They are bought from hacker forums. Many companies do not have adequate security measures (e.g. they store passwords in plain text) so a cyberattack would mean stolen passwords.

If a sextortion or any other scam email reveals your password, you need to change it right away. Passwords should be unique for each account to prevent several accounts from being hijacked if one password gets leaked/stolen.