The long-standing e-mail fraud started to rise again in 2019. Attackers continue to deceive their victims by sending mail with different content. These fraudulent emails sent on the internet to trick users are called scam.
With these e-mails, attackers aim to receive the money they demand from their victims through threats. As one of the most common threats, they say your webcam has been hacked and you have improper images. If you do not pay the requested money, they will threaten to send these images to everyone on your contact list. However, if you give the money or any virtual currency they request, you will be promised that they will not share these shameful images with anyone. As a continuation of this scenario or as another scenario, if you do not fulfill their demands, they will threaten to explode the bomb they have hidden somewhere, and tell you that becouse of you a lot of innocent people will be hurt. Of course you are not allowed to notify the police or any security agency. When you read the mail, you really think that such an event may happened, and you panic. You won’t know what to do. And maybe in the end you will pay the money they demand. The best solution, however, is to ignore emails with such content and not fulfill the demands.
Let's talk about a few things to distinguish these emails from others;
• The e-mail contains a bank account number or bitcoin address,
• Using mixed and coded characters,
• Sentences that create a sense of excitement and panic (so that you lose your logical reasoning and panic and fulfill the demands)
The way you can be protected from these attacks depends again on the precautions you take. That's why;
• Don't reply when you receive an e-mail with this content,
• Do not click if a link is sent in the mails,
• Choose strong passwords for your online accounts and do not use the same password for all your accounts. Use two-factor authentication.
Email scam does not require the cyber criminal to have a lot of technical information. This means that people who do not have technical knowledge can use such fraud methods by doing a small research. In order not to be a victim of this fraud, we have to be aware of the methods of the attackers and take our own precautions.