Hello everyone,
If you are worndering what could a person possibly do with your email/username and password, I am here to tell you about an email I received recently.
This email stated my username, which is my name and surname, like most people, and one of the passwords I used in the past. It also told a pretty funny story of how I visited a porn site and they planted a keylogger in my computer which gave them access to my microphone and camera, to make a video of what I was watching and me at that time. They stated they also have all my contacts It then gave me two options: Pay 1000 USD or be humiliated by sending both videos to my contacts.
Since I know for a fact their story isn't true, I deleted the email.
However, since there are a lot of people who may have visited a porn site (no judgement here what so ever), they may fall into this scam trap, so I decided to write this article.
In the past, you had a plethora of categories of infections which targeted your computer/device. From this however, a distinct branch of Social engineering scams and cons have developed. These either extort users, like this email, or the Phone Support scam, where people are conned into believing they are getting help, then they are asked to pay hefty sums for the service. This particular type of attack is called sextortion.
You can read more here, about Social Engineering https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/social-engineering
Please be aware of your online life and be responsible. Get good security for your devices and don't register the same password on your accounts.