Bitcoin Based Extortion Escalating According To FBI PSA
By: Jeremy Nation
Tags: Technology, Security, Crime, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Bitcoin Based Extortion Escalating According To FBI PSA

The feds are telling the public not to give in to any extortion attempts and offer some tips on how to avoid scams.

Earlier this month, on August 7, 2018, the FBI issued a public service announcement (PSA) warning of an increase in cases of extortion, plied by scammers through email and postal services, seeking bitcoins from the victims.

According to the FBI the scams seem authentic thanks to “specific user information,” used to lend credibility to the schemes. The feds offered up a laundry list of commonalities between the reported extortion attempts received by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) as follows:

“ The extortion attempt comes as an e-mail or letter from an unknown party. The recipient’s personal information is noted in the e-mail or letter to add a higher degree of intimidation to the scam. For example, a recipient’s user name or password is provided at the beginning of the e-mail or letter. The recipient is accused of visiting adult websites, cheating on a spouse, or being involved in other compromising situations. The e-mail or letter includes a statement like, “I stumbled across your misadventures,” or “I installed malware on the adult video site” as an explanation of how the information was supposedly gathered. The e-mail or letter threatens to send a video or other compromising information to family, friends, coworkers, or social network contacts if the ransom is not paid. The e-mail or letter provides a short window to pay, typically 48 hours. The recipient is instructed to pay the ransom in Bitcoin, a virtual currency that provides a high degree of anonymity to the transactions.”

Have you received any emails or letters matching or similar to the descriptions above? If so, you can file a complaint with IC3. Please remember that the FBI doesn’t condone giving in to the demands of extortionists because the funds turned over may further “facilitate continued criminal activity including potential organized crime activity and associated violent crimes.”

Alongside the warning, the PSA also offers tips to consumers on how they can protect themselves from scams. Some might seem obvious, such as avoiding communication with or opening attachments from unknown senders, and monitoring bank and credit records. And while some might wonder why they even exist in the first place, the FBI’s reminder to avoid storing embarrassing photos on devices connected to the internet is apt, since data breaches to supposedly secure servers,often housing sensitive information, have been on the rise.

The FBI also advises users to ensure their password is complex and to utilize multiple passwords for multiple sites as opposed to having a single master password. Services such as 1Password are ideal for serving this purpose; 1Password not only generates and stores a wide range of passwords, it also helps to seamlessly manage security for every account you use online.

The FBI prescribes users ensure that transmissions are secure by checking the URL prefixes and looking for the status bar to display a green “lock” icon. As it turns out, this isn’t enough. The presence of a lock icon merely means the data being transmitted is encrypted, however it speaks nothing to the validity of the site itself. Modern day phishing sites are indiscernible from sites with the lock icon, because they also have it. MetaCert’s browser add-on Cryptonite will help you avoid phishing sites, because it blocks them outright. Cryptonite is also fine tuned to provide a visual cue for verified resources on the web related to cryptocurrency, be it a URL or a post from a social media account. When Cryptonite’s black shield turns green, you know the resource is verified. Browsing with Cryptonite you can visit sites often targeted by phishers such as cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services without having to worry about losing your credentials.

Make time to take a look at your social media accounts and regulate who can see what. Publicly available information about you is often repurposed by scammers in the ways the FBI mentioned above in order to add believability to a phishing scam. Maybe it’s time to take a look at your social media following, and examine what personal details can be studied from your posts by people you don’t know. Otherwise, that which can be gleamed from a facebook status, tweet, or instagram post may come back to haunt you.

The MetaCert Protocol is a trust and reputation threat intelligence system for verifying web resources. It addresses a number of attack vectors, encompassing solutions for anti-phishing, child safety, brand protection, crypto-address verification, and news credibility. Find out more about the MetaCert Protocol, ask questions, and leave suggestions on both our White Paper and Technical Paper. You can also join our Telegram community to stay up to date on our blockchain project. Remember to install Cryptonite to protect yourself from phishing scams before it’s too late.