Communication security

New Sextortion Email Uses CIA Investigation as Scare Tactic

The sender pretends to be a CIA technical collection offer who found your details listed in a case number that is associated with an international operation targeting 2,000 individuals dealing in child pornography. The email goes on to say that the sender will amend and remove the recipient's details if they send $10,000 in bitcoin to a listed bitcoin address.

...MyOnlineSecurity.com, who told BleepingComputer about this new variant, also saw emails being sent using five other email addresses.

While past sextortion campaigns have generated a lot of revenue, it does not appear that anyone has made any payments associated with this new CIA sextortion campaign. This could be due to the very high price being asked for and that most people realize that the CIA would not be contacting them in this way.

It is important to stress that these emails are scams,  numerous people have reported receiving them, the CIA is not investigating you (at least I hope not), and that you should not make any payments to the listed bitcoin addresses.

If you receive an email like this, just delete them. As scary as they sound, they are nothing more than a scam.