Extortion Emails Increasing at U-M

ITS Information Assurance recently has seen a resurgence of email extortion scams across higher education. Please be aware of these ongoing scams and share this information with faculty, staff and students. 

Description

Across higher education, including the U-M community, there are increasing reports of extortion scam emails. The email is sent with a document attached that usually claims that the recipient viewed pornography and it demands payment (often via cryptocurrency like Bitcoin) to keep this from becoming public. The recipient’s name is used as an email subject and within the document. 

The current iteration of this scam has a few new twists designed to make it more convincing and frightening: 

• It may include a photo of the target’s home from Google maps
• It may claim that malware has captured webcam footage of the email recipient viewing pornography, or doing other activities of a sensitive nature, and it threatens to publish the videos.

This is a scam. The senders do not have evidence of pornography viewing or webcam footage of the recipient. They are working from large, publicly available lists of email addresses associated with past data breaches and publicly available information.

See a specific sample extortion email received at U-M.

Previous versions of this extortion scam included one of the target’s passwords—usually an old password compromised due to a data breach of services external to U-M.

Both Information Assurance and U-M's Division of Public Safety & Security consider the emails not credible.

How to Avoid the Scam

• Do not pay the extortion money. 
• Do not respond to suspicious emails like this, or click any links or documents in the email.
• If you receive any suspicious messages, forward them to [email protected].

If You Fall for the Scam

• Individuals who have fallen victim to one of these scams, which resulted in loss of money, should contact the University of Michigan Police Department at 734-763-1131 or text 377911.
• Forward any email communication with the scammer to [email protected].