Email scam includes personal info and targets people across Canada

Police are warning people in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario and across Canada about an email fraud in which criminals try to scam people out of money under threat of sending bogus compromising videos to would-be victims’ contact lists.

Saying the email fraud is “being reported across Canada,” Toronto Police issued a public advisory on Monday to make people aware of the scam and offer tips on how to avoid becoming a victim of the scheme, which “falsely claims the victim has visited a pornographic website and that malware has been installed” on their device.

In looking to pull off the fraud, those behind the scam send emails to their targets, investigators said. The emails are addressed to the recipient and contain personal information such as the person’s name, phone number and address.

The emails also include a photo of the recipient’s home, police noted, adding the images are taken from Google Maps and not from someone having visited the area in person.

In the emails, the culprits tell their targets they’ve been recorded as having visited a porn site and that a virus has been installed on their device allowing access to the fraudsters..

“The scammer then threatens to send alleged videos from the victim’s phone to their contact list unless a payment in bitcoin is made,” police said, adding the email also warns the victim not to share the message with anyone else. “The scam claims that once payment is made, all alleged videos will be deleted.”

Videos

Police say victims should know that at no point was their device compromised and that the personal information in the email “likely originates from a past data breach.”

Police offer the following tips on how to not be a victim:

• be aware of this type of fraud
• if you receive such an email, report it to police
• do not pay any money; the scammers do not have any compromising videos or images
• if your information has been part of a previous data breach, change your account passwords
• enable multifactor authentication on your accounts for added security

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-2222 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.