Greg's Corner

Scam threatens to infect your family with COVID

We’ve posted before about various scams that threaten either the victim or their family with violence. The first one that immediately jumps to mind is the virtual kidnapping scam where someone calls you and tells you a loved one has been kidnapped and demands a ransom. In reality, the supposed kidnap victim is fine. Another scam in a similar vein is the cartel scam where the scammer claims to be part of a criminal cartel that has targeted your family if you don’t pay them. The scammer will then send a violent picture claiming it to be their last victim. However, the scammer is targeting random people hoping that someone will pay to stop their fictitious demands. With this currently being the quarantine era, of course, there is a version of this scam that involves COVID-19.

In this updated version of the scam, the scammer will send you a phishing email that may contain the actual username and password to one of your online accounts. These can usually be obtained on the dark web or hacker forums after major data breaches occur. The scammer will threaten to expose all your ‘secrets’ if you don’t pay them. They’ll then say if you don’t pay they’ll infect every member of your family with coronavirus but not in such a polite manner.

“I know every dirty little secret about your life,” the email reads. “To start with, I know all of your passwords. I am aware of your whereabouts, what you eat, with whom you talk, every little thing you do in a day.”

“You need to pay me $4,000,” it goes on. “If I do not get the payment: I will infect every member of your family with the coronavirus. No matter how smart you are, believe me, if I want to infect, I can. I will also go ahead and reveal your secrets. I will completely ruin your life.”

These threats are mostly hollow as these scammers are usually overseas and have no way of really knowing your day to day interactions. again, the scammers are hoping for that one person that believes their claims. If you receive one of these emails your best bet is to simply delete the email. Don’t respond to it even to tell off the scammer as they will then know that your email address is a working one. Just to be on the side of caution you may also want to change your password on whatever account they claim to have compromised.