Pulse of Truth

You may have arrived at this post because you received an email with an attached PDF from a purported hacker who is demanding payment or else they will send compromising information—such as pictures sexual in nature—to all your friends and family. You’re searching for what to do in this frightening situation, and how to respond to an apparently personalized threat that even includes your actual “LastNameFirstName.pdf” and a picture of your house. Don’t panic. Contrary to the claims in your email, you probably haven't been hacked (or at least, that's not what prompted that email). This is merely a new variation on an old scam —actually, a whole category of scams called "sextortion." This is a type of online phishing that is targeting people around the world and preying on digital-age fears. It generally uses publicly available information or information from data breaches, not information obtained from hacking the recipients of the emails specifically, and therefore it is very unlikely the sender has any "incriminating" photos or has actually hacked your accounts or devices. They begin the emails showing you your address, full name, and possibly a picture of your house.  We’ll talk about a few steps to take to protect yourself, but the first and foremost piece of advice we have: do not pay the ransom. We have pasted an example of this email scam at the bottom of this post. The general gist is that a hacker claims to have compromised your computer and says[...]