A friend of mine recently received an email whose text was something like this:

"Hello!

As you may have noticed, I sent you an email from your account.

This means I have full access to your account.

I've been watching you for a few months.

The fact is, you got infected with malware through an adult site you visited.

If you are not familiar with this, I will explain to you.

Trojan virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.

This means I can see everything on the screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you know nothing about it.

I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why didn't your antivirus detect the malware?

Answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that Your antivirus was silent.

I made a video showing how you jerk off in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video you watched.

With a click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on social networks.

I can also post access to all correspondence and email messages you use.

If you want to prevent it, transfer the amount of $ 1400 to my bitcoin address (if you don't know how, write to Google: "Buy Bitcoin").

My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is:
After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear from me again.

I'll give you 48 hours to pay.

As soon as you open this letter, the timer will work and I will get a notification.

Filing a complaint somewhere makes no sense as this email cannot be tracked as is my bitcoin address.

I make no mistakes!

If I find that I have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Wishes!".

 

 

At first glance, the message seems ridiculous, also because being a woman she could not carry out the terrible practice she is accused of! 

There would therefore be a big laugh, were it not for an apparently disturbing detail: the sender and the recipient coincide. In other words, it appears that the message was sent by herself.
Or so it seems.

But is this really the case? Did the criminal actually get access of the email address?

Fortunately no! It is "just" a technique known in the jargon as email spoofing.
What's it about? In practice, the criminal pretends to use the same email address to send the message and ask for the ransom. This can be done incredibly on numerous sites, even free, in a rather simple way, without even the need to have great technical skills.

So at first glance, the message appears to actually be sent from the same address, but it is only a facade effect. In fact, on a more careful analysis, the servers from which the message is forwarded are different from those of the email provider (Gmail, outlook, gmx, etc.)
To make a metaphor, it is as if two different people are wearing the same mask; at first glance, they look the same, but it is enough to analyze a little to discover the differences.
Criminals bet on the ingenuity of users to blackmail them.

Once my friend was reassured, however, a doubt remained: how did the criminal know her email address?
Very often it happens that some databases of some sites are violated and therefore the attackers go back to the personal data of those who use these platforms. Unfortunately, it's not just bad sites that are vulnerable; indeed, highly reputable sites are often attacked. For example, in the case of my friend, we were able to understand that the criminal had known her email address due to the attack on DropBox a few years ago.

So how to defend yourself?

Well, first of all, rest assured: the criminal hasn't had access to our email address, doesn't know our password, and can't access our email inbox.
These messages have the sole purpose of blackmail.

Obviously, there is absolutely no need to pay! The criminals in question send a huge amount of the same messages. In practice, they shoot in the pile and sometimes even get some money.
As the saying goes, if you sprinkle a wall with glue, some mosquitoes will stick to it sooner or later.

As an additional precaution, it is good practice to have at least 4 different email addresses:

- One for all high-security platforms: broker, exchange, PayPal, bank, etc. In practice, where the big money goes.
- One for "troublemakers" such as faucet, HYIP, etc.
- One for friends and family
- A secret fourth one for lovers and affairs  (... joking)

The security of the first one must be maximum, however, this does not remove the possibility that one of the sites on which we use this email is hacked. Indeed, it often happens above all for banks, which are still rather lacking in terms of IT security.
If this happens, you must immediately generate a new email address to be used in the first case above. Yes, I know, cybersecurity is boring, but sadly you have to do it.

This is all I can think of about email spoofing.