A new sextortion scam is making the rounds that pretends to be an email from the adult site YouPorn, warning that a sexually explicit video of you was uploaded to the site and suggesting you pay to have it taken down.
In sextortion email scams the scammers pretend to have images or videos of you performing sexual acts and then demand money not publicly to publish them.
In the past, sextortion schemes pretended to be from hackers who claimed to infect your device and record videos of you performing sexual acts. They then threatened to share the videos with your contacts, family, and friends if you did not pay an extortion demand between $500 and $ 5,000.
While these sextortion schemes may sound silly, they were very successful when they first appeared in 2018, generating over $50,000 in a week.
Since then, threat actors have created various email extortion scams, including ones that pretend to be hitman contracts, bomb threats, CIA investigations, threats of installing ransomware, and threats to infect your family with Coronavirus.
New sextortion scam impersonates YouPorn
This week, a new sextortion scheme was shared on Twitter that pretends to be from the widely visited adult site YouPorn, warning that a sexually explicit video of the recipient was uploaded to its network of adult sites.
This email pretends to be sent from info@youporn.com and has a subject “Uploaded content: Feedback required,” warning that the alleged video will be published on the site in the next seven days unless you request to have it removed.
“At our company, we take the security and privacy of our users very seriously, and we use advanced technology to help detect and prevent the distribution of non-consensual intimate images and videos,” reads the fake email from YouPorn.
“While our tools are powerful, we also rely on human oversight to ensure that our platform remains safe and secure for everyone,”
“If you have approved the upload of this content, you do not need to take any further action. The video will be published to our library within the next seven days, and you will have an opportunity to review the content after the grace period has passed.”
“However, if you did not approve the upload of this content, we kindly ask that you follow the instructions below to take immediate action.”
Image: BleepingComputer
This email provides a link that allegedly allows you to remove the video for free, but these links are empty, causing your browser to open its home page.
The email then lists a series of paid-for options that can be used to remove the video from YouPorn and all of the sites in the adult network. However, these services cost $199, $699, or $1,399, with each tier allegedly having additional protection services.
“Our Plan A includes everything in the basic removal option, plus digitally fingerprinting of the content and automated removal and protection against re-uploading to our vast network of partner websites (300+) for one year, all for $699 USD,” reads the extortion email.
“If you require the best protection available, we recommend our Plan B, which includes everything in Plan A plus digital protection by MediaWise and Safeguard based on facial recognition data for three years. This ensures that any content with your biometrics will be blocked, and it costs $1399 USD.”
The email then prompts the user to pay for the fake removal services by sending the payment to a listed Bitcoin address.
From ten email samples seen by BleepingComputer, the extortionists are currently using two Bitcoin addresses:
Thankfully, the campaign has not been successful, and there have been no payments so far to either of the above Bitcoin addresses.
However, it’s likely other addresses were used in this campaign that BleepingComputer did not see.
It is important to stress that these emails are scams, others have reported receiving them, a sex video of you was not uploaded to YouPorn, and you should not make any payments to the listed Bitcoin addresses.
If you received this email, just delete it. As scary as they sound, they are nothing more than a scam.