An lively extortion rip-off is focusing on web site house owners and admins worldwide, claiming to have hacked their servers and demanding $2,500 to not leak information.
The attackers (self-dubbed Team Montesano) are sending emails with “Your website, databases and emails has been hacked” topics.
The emails seem like non-targeted, with ransom demand recipients from all verticals, together with private bloggers, authorities companies, and huge firms.
The rip-off is so widespread that our personal reporter Ax Sharma and Have I Been Breached created Troy Hunt have additionally obtained these extortion makes an attempt.
The spam messages warn that the hackers will leak stolen information, injury their popularity, and get the location blacklisted for spam if the targets don’t make a fee of $2,500.
The full extortion message might be learn under:
FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO THE PERSON WITHIN YOUR COMPANY WHO MAKES THE IMPORTANT DECISIONS
You might have observed that we’re utilizing your organization’s server to ship this message, we now have hacked into your https://www.***.gov web site and extracted all your databases and backed up all your mailboxes.
How did this occur?
Our crew discovered a number of vulnerabilities inside your web site and firm computer systems that we have been in a position to exploit. After discovering them, we have been in a position to receive their database credentials and extract their full information from their computer systems, from their web site and copies of all emails in all their mailboxes with ***.gov area and eventually we moved the data to a international server.
What does this imply?
We will systematically undergo a collection of steps to completely injury your popularity. First, your database might be leaked or offered to the very best bidder for use for any goal. Next, emails might be despatched to all of your clients, suppliers and enterprise companions, stating that each one of their data has been offered or leaked and your https://***.gov web site was at fault for leaking the data and damaging the popularity of all of your clients and suppliers. Lastly, any hyperlinks you’ve got listed in search engines like google and yahoo might be de-indexed based mostly on the blackhat strategies we used prior to now to de-index our targets, to not point out getting your enterprise on each blacklist within the nation.
How do I cease this?
We are prepared to neglect about destroying the popularity of your web site and firm for a small price. The present price is $2,500 USD in Bitcoins.
Send the quantity in Bitcoin to the next tackle:
3Fyjqj5WutzSVJ8DnKrLgZFEAxVz6Pddn7
Once you’ve got made your fee, we are going to mechanically be told of it. At the exact second that you’ve got learn this message, you’ve got a interval of 72 hours to make the fee, or I assure that the popularity of your organization might be fully destroyed. The proof that we now have entry and all of your information is that this message has been despatched utilizing your organization’s servers.
How do I get Bitcoins?
You can simply purchase bitcoins by way of numerous web sites.
What occurs if I do not pay?
If you resolve to not pay, we are going to launch the assault after 72 hours and preserve it till you do, there is no such thing as a countermeasure to this, you’ll simply find yourself losing more cash looking for an answer. We will fully destroy your popularity along with your clients, your suppliers, your companions, on google and the complete nation.
This just isn’t a hoax, don’t attempt to motive or negotiate, we won’t learn any solutions. Once you have paid, we’ll cease what we have been doing, we’ll destroy all information taken out of your web site, your databases, your mailboxes, and you will by no means hear from us once more.
Keep in thoughts that the fee with Bitcoin is nameless and nobody will know that you’ve got complied. The time is working.
From extortion emails seen by BleepingComputer, the menace actors are presently utilizing two bitcoin addresses.
Unfortunately, the bitcoin transactions to the pockets 3Fyjqj5WutzSVJ8DnKrLgZFEAxVz6Pddn7 point out that somebody might have paid the extortion demand already.
Even although these emails might be scary to these web site house owners who obtain them, it is very important keep in mind that they are simply scams.
They are being mass-emailed to many individuals and are simply attempting to scare individuals into making a fee. Instead, simply mark them as spam and delete them.
Also, at all times seek for the Bitcoin tackle embedded within the blackmail electronic mail you obtain on the Bitcoin Abuse Database to seek out any studies of fraudsters actively utilizing them.
Since the summer season of 2018, when BleepingComputer began reporting on these scams, menace actors have been behind a large assortment of electronic mail extortion scams.
The listing contains scams that fake to be bomb threats, hitman contracts, CIA investigations, threats of putting in ransomware, as effectively ones containing threats to infect the targets’ households with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.