Pandemic and coronavirus-isolation of inhabitants in many countries has given cyber criminals new opportunities for attempts of embezzlement of funds, among them cyber-attacks, demanding payment of thousands of dollars for personal photos and videos from cameras device users, told RIA Novosti interviewed experts.
Cyberattacks kind sextortion (eng. "the sexual extortion") is that the scammers get from screen or webcam user intimate videos or photos. Then the scammers require you to pay them the ransom. If the victim refuses to pay, the attackers threatened to send private data across all of its contacts.
"If the notebook user is not installed protective solution, then it may be a situation in which it will follow, including with the camera is technically possible. This person this may not even guess: with the help of malware such as Blackshades, a hacker could remotely turn on and off the webcam, take screenshots of the screen. The main threat here is that private photos, videos or messages can become not so private", – said the expert on cyber security "Kaspersky Lab" Dmitry Greeks and Gauls.
the Price privacy
According to the Director of Department of information technologies of ESET Russia Ruslan Suleymanov, criminals "are keeping pace with time" and improve the attack.
"the Victims received threats that if they transferred the ransom, the recording will be sent to all her contacts, and family members will be infected COVID-19. It is difficult to assess the real extent "sextortion". Not everyone is faced with blackmail, the user will want to tell it," he said.
As said the technical Director of Check Point Software Technologies in Russia and the CIS Nikita Durov, the attackers often show the user the password from his email to prove you have access to private files. E-mail addresses, passwords and other personal information, the scammers get the leakage databases in the darknet.
"these letters begin with the password of the victim to scare and confuse her, seeing the password from your email, people believe that the attacker has access to their camera. From this, many lost and ready to meet the requirements of cyber criminals. We do not recommend to do: there is no evidence that hackers have your data, the password does not guarantee this. This attack is designed for the mass – even if at least 1% of victims believe that email, the attackers will get a lot of money," he explained.
"the Scammer threatened to send the video to all contacts of the user, if the victim will not make payment bitco��AMI to the specified address. Approximate amount — from 1900 to 7000 dollars, but there may be more", – said the head of the representative office Avast in Russia and the CIS Alexey Fedorov.
Such types of cyberattacks are not new: in October 2019 team Check Point Research revealed malware Phorpiex that using a spam bot to send users such letters. The spam bot can give out about 30 thousand emails per hour, and each individual sextortion campaign can cover up to 27 million potential victims, said Durov.
the just don’t panic
Experts unanimously call in this situation users not to panic and not to transfer funds to cyber criminals.Suleymanov from the company ESET advises to follow the rules of digital hygiene, change the password and hide the social network contact lists.
"of Course, the best protection against this cyber attack — preventative. However, if you had to deal with the extortioner, the main thing — not to panic, and in any case not to transfer any funds. That way you only prosponsiruete further growth of crime. Do not be afraid of infection of the coronavirus, most likely the attacker is hundreds of miles away from you, and just play on such a relevant topic and the General panic", – said Suleymanov.
According to Fyodorov, the best strategy — just ignore such letters. The Greeks and Gauls of "Kaspersky Lab" in turn, recommends the use of personal devices and special stickers for the camera.
"to protect themselves from peeping, you can stick the camera (it is better to find a special sticker-blinds, which if necessary is not satisfactory, but can simply be pushed to the side and not to spoil the optics). But it is more effective to use a protective solution that you can use to determine the range of safe programs that can connect to the webcam", – he said.
