Cybercriminals managed to earn about $ 320,000 in bitcoins.

According to a study conducted by the British cybercrime investigation company Digital Shadows and published on The Next Web, cybercriminals managed to earn about $ 320,000 in bitcoins thanks to email-based fraud. These funds were sent from more than 3,100 unique Bitcoin addresses.

For the first time, fraud was reported in 2017. However, the popularity of the attack grew during 2018, and there were many more examples of the emergence of emails.

Many scammers use the same tactic to earn bitcoins. The “sextortion” scam is believed to be quite simple. Victims receive an email that they are registered. They then view the content through their webcam. The sender undertakes to publish the footage, if the ransom is not paid in bitcoins.

As already mentioned, the scammers using this technique sent more than $ 332,000. These funds were deposited at 92 addresses. According to Digital Shadows estimates, an average of 540 dollars was extorted from each victim.

The report emphasizes that different groups using the same basic scam work with different levels of complexity. Some of the sent emails are poorly written and show scant knowledge about the widespread use of email. These examples often fail the spam filter in the inbox.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, some of the letters show a much higher level of refinement. For example, many of these more complex examples were sent to outlook.com.

Digital Shadows research included analysis of over 792,000 emails. They were sent from servers allegedly hosted on five different continents. The places with the most letters sent were Vietnam, Brazil and India. It is assumed that fraudsters originating from these countries lag behind 8.5, 5.3 and 4.7% of the total number of attempts. However, it is possible that mail servers could also be compromised as part of the attack.

According to The Independent, fraudsters are increasingly turning to social networking sites to target wealthy people. In this version of the aforementioned fraud, people were offered as much as $ 1.1 million to help achieve the most lucrative ratings. This more sophisticated version of fraud includes establishing a relationship with a married person, and then threatening to disclose it if the ransom is not paid.

Using social networks can help determine the work of a potential victim, the likely salary and the firms for which they worked. They may also disclose information about family members, marital status and their location.