extortion emails

Best practice is to cover your webcam when not using it. Do not reuse passwords. Use a password manager even if it cost money. Use 2 factor authentication and an Authenticator app. They’re free. Change your password and good luck.

Thank you I have the Norton Antivirus on my computers but did not know about one for IOS, thank you for the help.

The beginning is always different. The ending said outlook.com. Also get a good antivirus anti male ware program. I use malewarebytes on my laptop and iOS devices. Comcast does offer free antivirus software for Windows. I do not use Windows OS. Good luck.

I am receiving this kind of email also, but they are also in possession of my email password, I have no idea how and I am in a scramble to change my passwords. Is there a possibility that they were able to hack into my camera and take a video?  

Can you tell me what email address your email was from? Im trying to figure out if it was the same person that sent you the same email.

This kind of thing has been going on for quite a while - think a # of years.  This article might help explain about the bitcoin exploitation fraud.  It's always a good idea to change your email password from time to time; and passwords in general, including your bank, any logins, etc. and never share ANY personal identifying information with anyone online, including here.

Also, if you're going to forward an email to abuse, you need to make sure you send the headers - that stuff you don't see when you open an email.  Just because an email may say it's from outlook.com [for example] doesn't necessarily mean that it came from there, especially if the email mentions that the email it came from has been encrypted and the sender used software to make sure their email address and routing and ISP cannot be detected.

In order to see - and copy - the headers, in webmail, open the email and under where it says TO: you should see three lines.  Click on the lines and scroll down and click on View Source.  A window will popup that shows the headers of the email.  In order to copy the info in that window, right click and choose Select all, then right click again and choose Copy.  Then, in the email you are fowarding, paste that information.  If you don't do this, the abuse team most likely won't do anything about the threatening email.

I'm getting these as well.  How can we be sure we've not been hacked?

You can never be 100% sure but this scam has been happening for a long time now and they are just sending it to long lists of emails and passwords they bought off the dark web.  The probability is extremely low that you were actually hacked.

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@43Five wrote:

I'm getting these as well.  How can we be sure we've not been hacked?

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Every state has a Department of Justice.  They are supposed to go after these people. 

I'm getting them, too.  I reported them to the police and the state Department of Justice.

A few months back  I received a call from a fake computer tech. That laptop died years ago but that was the password for the computer company website used in my email. That fake tech was trying to get control of my laptop. I understand most of the time these logins and passwords are sold on the dark web but that information was hacked or leaked from somewhere. 

Yes, I have the same. I have "blocked" this email about 2 years ago, but did not shut it down. I will now. And yes, they go an old password that is no longer linked to comcast. So that part is scary. 

And, no, I have not gone on bad sites. This one found me. 

I would appreciate support. Can't get through to any customer service or anything else. 

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@abbiet wrote:

Yes, I have the same. I have "blocked" this email about 2 years ago, but did not shut it down. I will now. And yes, they go an old password that is no longer linked to comcast. So that part is scary. 

And, no, I have not gone on bad sites. This one found me. 

I would appreciate support. Can't get through to any customer service or anything else. 

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There really isn't anything they can do to support you.  You likely used the same password for a hotel login (there was a big breach a while back where passwords and emails were compromised) or maybe Target or one of the many other breaches.  You can report the email to the abuse team (you have to forward the email as an attachment, or include the headers) so that they can use it to update their filters, but these scammers are good at cirvumventing filters.  This is the case with any email provider, corporation, etc.  Unfortunately you just have to ignore and delete them and they will die down eventually.  Your only other option is to delete your email and start a new one but that is a pain and it will eventually get compromised too.