The webcam blackmail scam is making a strong comeback for the start of the 2022 school year. This is at least what the director general of the Public Interest Group Action against Cybermalveillance (GIP ACYMA) announced on Twitter on Tuesday.
Relayed by RTL, Jérôme Notin indicated that the number of consultations of the page devoted to webcam blackmail on the cybermalveillance.gouv.fr site had peaked in recent days.
And since this weekend, return of this old scam (after a peak this summer) to the allegedly hacked webcam https://t.co/QWHk6bBwb6 pic.twitter.com/HtDf6lbe2w
— Jérôme Notin (@JeromeNotin) September 20, 2022
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This scam is known as “sextortion”.
It consists for the scammers in contacting the victim, most often by email, and making him believe that his hacked webcam has filmed him consulting a pornographic or child pornography site.
The scammers then ask for money, sometimes several thousand euros, otherwise they will broadcast these alleged images.
A variant of this scam takes the form of a false summons from the minors protection brigade for the same reasons.
Another very interesting figure: 868,289 page views in - 1 year on the "minor protection squad" scam, very well referenced in search engines.
So presumably many many people received this phishing message https://t.co/BWY1sqVaDE
— Jérôme Notin (@JeromeNotin) September 20, 2022
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Do not give in to blackmail
This blackmail would have made thousands of victims in France for years, pushing the authorities to alert for a long time on this malicious process.
In the event of receipt of such an email, neither reply nor pay the requested amount.
In the vast majority of cases, the scammers have no compromising image, even if the hacker has some personal information.
It is then advisable to take screenshots of the message and send them to the Pharos reporting platform or to cybermalveillance.gouv.fr.
If sums have already been paid, you must contact your bank as soon as possible to cancel the transaction and go to the police station to file a complaint.
Finally, to avoid any risk of webcam hacking, it is possible to hide the camera of your computer beforehand using, for example, a piece of adhesive tape.
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