Cyberattackers are using victims’ names, addresses, and photos of their homes to personalize sextortion attacks and increase the pressure to pay, according to new research published by Barracuda. The threat researchers also found that that extortion demands are increasing from a few hundred to thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, and criminals are making it easier for victims to pay with Quick Response (QR) codes.
Sextortion scams are a type of blackmail where criminals attempt to extort money from victims by threatening to release what they claim are explicit images or videos taken from the victim’s computer unless demands are met.
Barracuda researchers have identified evolving tactics – including advanced personalization – being used by criminals in these targeted attacks.
These tactics include:
- Leveraging the personal data of targeted victims, including full names, telephone numbers and addresses, to make their sextortion attempts more threatening and convincing. The sextortion emails address the victim by their first and last name, and the opening sentences of the email include the victim’s telephone number, street address, and city.
An image from Google Maps of the target’s location. In analyzed emails, images included either a residential or commercial location, depending on the address associated with the victim’s stolen data.
- Higher payment demands, often for several thousand USD. In some cases, Quick Response (QR) codes are being provided in the emails to make it faster and easier for victims to send bitcoin payments to the criminals. In the emails that include them, the QR codes appear directly below the bitcoin address.
“Sextortion emails are usually sent to thousands of people at a time, as part of larger spam campaigns, but their individual impact can be devastating in terms of monetary loss and personal distress,” said Kyle Blanker, manager, software engineering at Barracuda. “To avoid being caught by security tools and filters and increase the chances of success, attackers vary and personalize their messages to appear convincing and terrify the victim into paying.”
Barracuda recommends keeping mailboxes and employees protected from sextortion spam by investing in AI-based email protection, including account-takeover protection, coupled with proactive investigation and security-awareness training. Organizations should make it easy for employees to report highly sensitive and potentially embarrassing attacks and keep browsers and operating systems up-to-date helps prevent sextortion emails from infecting targets’ devices with malware.
To read the blog: https://blog.barracuda.com/2024/11/12/threat-spotlight-personalize-sextortion-scams
