Derbyshire Police issues warning over latest 'sextortion' phishing scam targeting residents in the county

This is known as sextortion, which is a type of phishing attack where people are coerced to pay a bitcoin ransom in exchange for not having any potentially compromising or embarrassing videos of themselves shared.

A Derbyshire Police spokesman said: “These scams are made to appear all the more credible because they provide seemingly plausible technical details about how this was achieved, and the phish can sometimes also include an individual’s password.

“As with most phishing emails they’ll often contain poor grammar and spelling and sometimes using a different font so they don’t get filtered to your junk mailbox.

“Such phishing emails are sent out on mass, but password details can make them seem very real. Usually old password details have been obtained during a past data breach.

“It is extremely unlikely that your password has been taken as a result of any kind of malware on your computer or mobile device. It does, however add a degree of credibility to the threat, making some people believe that they really have been spied on.”

The force advises:

*Do not respond, pay the demanded fee or click on any links or open attachments in the email;

*Don’t panic – remember that this is a mass email.

You can check if your account has been compromised and get future notifications by visiting: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

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