A new nationwide sextortion scam is beginning to arrive in Gmail accounts of University of Rochester faculty, staff, students, and families. The scammers obtain victims’ email addresses and other personal information from the dark web and threaten to expose their personal information and embarrassing content unless they pay in Bitcoin.
What you need to know:
Remain calm!
The scammers claim to have access to victims’ devices and personal accounts, but this is not true. If you receive one of these emails, do not engage or share any personal information. Scammers will go to great lengths (using pictures from social media, google map images of your home) to try and convince you they have explicit content.
The Information Security team has blocked messages from these senders to UR and URMC mailboxes but are unable to block the messages from going to personal Gmail accounts so we must stay extra vigilant in protecting ourselves from these scams by:
- Looking out for suspicious emails or text messages.
- Never revealing personal or financial information in response to an email request, no matter who appears to have sent it.
- Never clicking on links or attachments in suspicious emails.
It is always prudent to be vigilant of suspicious emails coming to your gmail, Outlook or other mailboxes.
If you receive a sextortion phishing email to your Gmail account, use these helpful links below:
- Report spam or phishing on Gmail app: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1366858?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
- Report spam or phishing on Gmail on your desktop: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1366858?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
- Report sextortion scams to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) www.ic3.gov
For more information on this scam, visit the New York State Trooper website at: https://troopers.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-police-warns-nationwide-automated-sextortion-scams