Bitcoin Sextortion: Scams Using Email, Videos, Passwords to Extort BTC

Millions of people worldwide have received sextortion scam emails in 2020 asking for bitcoin. These bitcoin sextortion schemes sometimes include recipients’ passwords to make the threat more real. The authorities have advised what to do if you receive a bitcoin sextortion email.

Bitcoin Sextortion Scams Proliferate Globally

The number of people targeted by bitcoin sextortion scams in 2020 has increased rapidly. According to an analysis by British security company Sophos, millions of people recently received sextortion scam emails in the week it analyzed.

“In fact, the number was probably more like tens or even hundreds of millions,” Sophos senior threat analyst Paul Ducklin wrote, adding that some people received between two and five different varieties of this scam. He explained, “The scams exploited global botnets on compromised PCs to dispatch millions of spam emails to recipients around the world,” elaborating:

Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, India,…