We are also monitoring the botnet’s activity to see what malware it is using.
If the botnet ingests new email addresses, we can see them and add to the database. That’s a lot of people potentially impacted by sextortion.The botnet we’ve been monitoring is a “for rent” botnet used expressly for sextortion. In the first half of 2019 alone, Cofense Labs, our newly formalized R&D arm, analyzed over 7 million sextortion-related emails. We wanted to help victims avoid the anxiety of trying to figure out whether to pay the requested bitcoin ransom. Why was it important to publish the list of compromised accounts? It’s just recycling email addresses acquired through various means over time.
The good news is we know that this botnet IS NOT infecting computers to acquire new data sets. This allows an attacker to control a large number of computers.
#Whats extortion software
The term “bot” is short for using the term “robot,” connected to the “net” as in “network.” A botnet is a network of computers infected with software that will wait for instructions from whoever is controlling it. What is a botnet and how is the scam distributed?
#Whats extortion password
What makes the email especially believable is that to prove their legitimacy, “sextortionists” begin by showing you a password you once used or currently use. Typically, a victim receives an email from a cybercriminal who threatens to send purported compromising information – such as sexual pictures or videos – to friends and family unless the victim agrees to pay a bitcoin ransom. Typically, sextortion means the threatened release of sexual images or information to extort cryptocurrency. Sextortion encompasses a broad range of cybercrimes involving non-physical forms of coercion. To learn more about sextortion and the botnet discovery, NCSA spoke with Tonia Dudley, Director, Security Solution Advisor at Cofense and NCSA board member. The company is sharing the database to help people and employers avoid becoming victims. The scams involve emails sent via a large “for rent” botnet Cofense discovered in June. Earlier this week, Cofense, a National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) board member company, announced it had published a database of more than 200 million compromised email accounts targeted by sextortion scams.
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