What is the “I am a Hacker Who Has Access To Your Operating System” email scam

The “I am a Hacker Who Has Access To Your Operating System” email scam is classified as a sextortion email scam. It’s a very generic attempt to trick users into sending scammers money in exchange for not releasing a non-existent explicit video to users’ contacts. The email is nothing more than a scam and can be ignored.

 

 

Emails that threaten to release users’ explicit photos or videos publicly are classified as sextortion. In most cases, these emails are fake and are part of a malicious email campaign. They fall into the sextortion scam email category. This is the case with the “I am a Hacker Who Has Access To Your Operating System” email and all other similarly worded emails.

Sextortion emails like the “I am a Hacker Who Has Access To Your Operating System” email use alarming subject lines to catch users’ attention. This email has a “Security Alert. Your accounts were hacked by a criminal group” subject line. These emails usually land in the spam folders but users who check them will likely notice the email and possibly open it because of the alarming subject line.

The email’s sender introduces themselves as a hacker who has supposedly hacked the recipient’s computer. They claim to have been watching the user for several months after installing malware on their computer. The malware was supposedly downloaded on the user’s computer after they visited an adult website. The malware supposedly allowed the “hacker” full access to the user’s computer. They claim to have spied on the user via the camera and microphone. They also state that they have created a video showing users watching pornography on one side and the explicit video on the other. They threaten to release the video to all of the recipient’s contacts if they do not agree to pay $500 in Bitcoin.

The email’s contents are completely fake and can be ignored.

The full “I am a Hacker Who Has Access To Your Operating System” email scam is below:

Subject: Security Alert. Your accounts were hacked by a criminal group.

Hello!

I am a hacker who has access to your operating system.
I also have full access to your account.

I’ve been watching you for a few months now.
The fact is that you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.

If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.

I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why your antivirus did not detect malware?
Answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that your antivirus is silent.

I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video that you watched.
With one click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on social networks.
I can also post access to all your e-mail correspondence and messengers that you use.

If you want to prevent this,
transfer the amount of $500 to my bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, write to Google: “Buy Bitcoin”).

My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: –

After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear me again.
I give you 50 hours (more than 2 days) to pay.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work when you see this letter.

Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.

If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Best regards!

Malicious actors use various scare tactics to pressure users into paying. Sextortion emails are written in a very mocking and threatening tone to make the user feel ashamed. Even if they have never visited pornography websites, they may believe that an explicit video associated with them would be sent to their contacts, which would affect their reputation. For users not familiar with sextortion scam emails, this may be enough to trick them into paying.

For future reference, users should be aware that sextortion emails are always fake. The text may be different depending on which cyber group is operating it but they are easily recognizable. All emails where senders claim to have hacked a computer and created an explicit video of the recipient are fake.

Why am I receiving sextortion scam emails?

While some sextortion campaigns may be random, most users receive the emails because their email addresses have been leaked or have been part of a data breach. Users can check on haveibeenpwned whether their email address has been leaked. Leaked email addresses are sold on hacker forums for other cybercriminals to buy and use for their malicious purposes.

It’s worth mentioning that some sextortion emails reveal users’ passwords. This is an effective scare tactic because if users see a password they use, they may believe that their computers have malware on them. In reality, passwords are obtained the same way email addresses are. If a service does not have adequate security and stores passwords in plain text, the passwords could be stolen during a breach. They can then be sold on hacker forums.