What is the “Professional Hacker Managed To Hack Your Operating System” email scam

“Professional Hacker Managed To Hack Your Operating System” email scam falls into the sextortion scam category. It’s a classic example of a sextortion scam that tries to extort money from users by threatening to release explicit videos of them. The contents of the email are completely false, thus paying would be a waste of money.

 

 

Over the last 5 years or so, sextortion scam emails have become very common. Users whose email addresses have been leaked will have received a sextortion email at least once. Fortunately, they usually land in the spam folder, which not many users check. Sextortion emails generally follow the same pattern, even if they are operated by different scammers. To first catch users’ attention, these emails use alarming sentences like “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities” in this particular case. Scammers use a mocking tone and threatening language in the text to make users anxious. They falsy claim that users’ computers have been infected with malware, which allowed them to fully access users’ computers. They further state that the malware allowed them to make explicit videos of users watching pornography. Scammers then demand a payment to not release the video publicly.

The sender of this particular sextortion email introduces themselves as a professional hacker. They claim that when you visited an adult website, your computer got infected with “harmful spyware” that allowed them complete access to your computer. This supposedly allowed the “hacker” to see your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, as well as steal your confidential information (including emails and messages). They also claim to have made a video of you watching pornography, with you on one side and the video you were supposedly watching on the other. The scammer threatens to send the video to all your contacts unless you agree to pay $850 in Bitcoin.

As we mentioned several times already, the contents of such emails are fake. Your computer is not infected with malware nor is there a video of you watching pornography. You can delete “Professional Hacker Managed To Hack Your Operating System” email scam from your inbox.

“Professional Hacker Managed To Hack Your Operating System” email scam text in full:

Subject: Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities.

Hi there!

I am a professional hacker and have successfully managed to hack your operating system.
Currently I have gained full access to your account.

In addition, I was secretly monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months.
The thing is your computer was infected with harmful spyware due to the fact that you had visited a website with porn content previously. ╭ ᑎ ╮

Let me explain to you what that entails. Thanks to Trojan viruses, I can gain complete access to your computer or any other device that you own.
It means that I can see absolutely everything in your screen and switch on the camera as well as microphone at any point of time without your permission.
In addition, I can also access and see your confidential information as well as your emails and chat messages.

You may be wondering why your antivirus cannot detect my malicious software.
Let me break it down for you: I am using harmful software that is driver-based,
which refreshes its signatures on 4-hourly basis, hence your antivirus is unable to detect it presence.

I have made a video compilation, which shows on the left side the scenes of you happily masturbating,
while on the right side it demonstrates the video you were watching at that moment..ᵔ.ᵔ

All I need is just to share this video to all email addresses and messenger contacts of people you are in communication with on your device or PC.
Furthermore, I can also make public all your emails and chat history.

I believe you would definitely want to avoid this from happening.
Here is what you need to do – transfer the Bitcoin equivalent of 850 USD to my Bitcoin account
(that is rather a simple process, which you can check out online in case if you don’t know how to do that).

Below is my bitcoin account information (Bitcoin wallet): 12nEVuGNtRFMVjeVmLtD4nt2sHX68S47yH

Once the required amount is transferred to my account, I will proceed with deleting all those videos and disappear from your life once and for all.
Kindly ensure you complete the abovementioned transfer within 50 hours (2 days +).
I will receive a notification right after you open this email, hence the countdown will start.

Trust me, I am very careful, calculative and never make mistakes.
If I discover that you shared this message with others, I will straight away proceed with making your private videos public.
Good luck!

Sextortion scam emails rely on making users anxious enough not to think logically. To create that anxiety, the sender mocks the recipient and uses threatening language. The threat of revealing highly personal information to contacts is especially anxiety-inducing and can convince users to pay.

Another tactic used to scare users is password revealing. This particular sextortion email does not use this tactic but it’s encountered often enough. Scammers include users’ passwords in emails as “evidence” that they indeed have access to their computers and have stolen sensitive information. And this tactic does work because many users are not aware that scammers buy leaked passwords. When a service does not have adequate security and password protection, cybercriminals can steal passwords during a cyber attack. These passwords, along with email addresses, end up on hacker forums where cybercriminals buy them.

Finally, we should mention that if you ever encounter a similar email, you can disregard it as a scam as these emails are never legitimate.