• tonibennett
• February 27, 2024
• No Comments

What kind of scam is “I Regret To Inform You About Some Sad News For You”?

After analysing this email, we determined that it is a sextortion scam threatening to share (disclose) videos of recipients visiting adult websites and their personal information. This email aims to trick recipients into sending a specified amount of Bitcoins to the provided wallet. None of the claims in this email are true. Thus, it must be ignored

More about the “I Regret To Inform You About Some Sad News For You” sextortion scam

This email claims that access to a computer has been gained, and Internet activities have been observed. It states that an email account has been hacked. It also claims that the operating system has been infected with a Trojan that accessed the webcam, microphone, social network accounts, messengers, contact lists, downloaded photos, web browsing history, and other data.

The purpose of this email is to trick recipients into believing that compromising videos have been recorded and will be disclosed if $1490 in Bitcoins are not paid to the provided BTC wallet. It urges recipients to pay a ransom within 48 hours from receiving it.

It is worth mentioning that this email appears to be sent from the recipient’s address. Scammers behind it use a spoofing technique to trick unsuspecting recipients into believing that their email account has been hacked.

Similar scams in general

As a rule, scammers behind sextortion scams coerce recipients to pay a ransom for not sharing the obtained material (videos, photos, personal files/data). They claim that they have accessed a webcam, a microphone, or gained access to a computer in some other way. Most scammers demand to be paid in cryptocurrency (they provide a crypto wallet address in their email addresses).

Examples of similar emails are “I Broke Into Your Computer System Using The Wireless Network Router Email Scam“, “We Are Ukrainian Hackers And We Hacked Your Site Email Scam“, and “Your System Has Been Hacked With A Trojan Virus Email Scam“. It is important to know that email can be used as a channel for delivering malware.

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

When emails are used to spread malware, they contain malicious attachments or links. In both cases, threat actors use them to trick recipients into downloading and executing malware. Usually, such emails are disguised as important/official/urgent letters from legitimate entities.

Most commonly used files to distribute malware are PDF, Microsoft and other documents, JavaScript files, executables, ISO files, and archive files containing malicious files.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Do not trust irrelevant emails sent from unknown, suspicious addresses (e.g., emails sent from your address). Do not open files or links presented in emails of this kind. Files/links in such emails can be malicious. Use official websites and stores to download applications and files. Do not trust other sources.

Keep the operating system and installed programs up to date. Use functions/tools provided (created) by the official software developers to update and activate the installed software.

If you’ve already opened malicious attachments, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the “I Regret To Inform You About Some Sad News For You” email letter:

Subject: Don’t miss your unsettled payment. Complete your debt payment now.

Hi there!

I regret to inform you about some sad news for you.
Approximately a month or two ago I have succeeded to gain a total access to all your devices utilized for browsing internet.
Moving forward, I have started observing your internet activities on continuous basis.

Go ahead and take a look at the sequence of events provided below for your reference:
Initially I bought an exclusive access from hackers to a long list of email accounts (in today’s world, that is really a common thing, which can arranged via internet).
Evidently, it wasn’t hard for me to proceed with logging in your email account (-).

Within the same week, I moved on with installing a Trojan virus in Operating Systems for all devices that you use to login to email.
Frankly speaking, it wasn’t a challenging task for me at all (since you were kind enough to click some of the links in your inbox emails before).
Yeah, geniuses are among us.

Because of this Trojan I am able to gain access to entire set of controllers in devices (e.g., your video camera, keyboard, microphone and others).
As result, I effortlessly downloaded all data, as well as photos, web browsing history and other types of data to my servers.
Moreover, I have access to all social networks accounts that you regularly use, including emails, including chat history, messengers, contacts list etc.
My unique virus is incessantly refreshing its signatures (due to control by a driver), and hence remains undetected by any type of antiviruses.

Hence, I guess by now you can already see the reason why I always remained undetected until this very letter…

During the process of compilation of all the materials associated with you,
I also noticed that you are a huge supporter and regular user of websites hosting nasty adult content.
Turns out to be, you really love visiting porn websites, as well as watching exciting videos and enduring unforgettable pleasures.
As a matter of fact, I was not able to withstand the temptation, but to record certain nasty solo action with you in main role,
and later produced a few videos exposing your masturbation and cumming scenes.

If until now you don’t believe me, all I need is one-two mouse clicks to make all those videos with everyone you know,
including your friends, colleagues, relatives and others.
Moreover, I am able to upload all that video content online for everyone to see.
I sincerely think, you certainly would not wish such incidents to take place, in view of the lustful things demonstrated in your commonly watched videos,
(you absolutely know what I mean by that) it will cause a huge adversity for you.

There is still a solution to this matter, and here is what you need to do:
You make a transaction of $1490 USD to my account (an equivalent in bitcoins, which recorded depending on the exchange rate at the date of funds transfer),
hence upon receiving the transfer, I will immediately get rid of all those lustful videos without delay.
After that we can make it look like there was nothing happening beforehand.
Additionally, I can confirm that all the Trojan software is going to be disabled and erased from all devices that you use. You have nothing to worry about,
because I keep my word at all times.

That is indeed a beneficial bargain that comes with a relatively reduced price,
taking into consideration that your profile and traffic were under close monitoring during a long time frame.
If you are still unclear regarding how to buy and perform transactions with bitcoins – everything is available online.

Below is my bitcoin wallet for your further reference: 1r8KDQsoFUWLdV1D2L1vc66YibNDrrYys

All you have is 48 hours and the countdown begins once this email is opened (in other words 2 days).

The following list includes things you should remember and avoid doing:
> There’s no point to try replying my email (since this email and return address were created inside your inbox).
> There’s no point in calling police or any other types of security services either. Furthermore, don’t you dare sharing this info with any of your friends.
 If I discover that (taking into consideration my skills, it will be really simple, because I control all your systems and continuously monitor them) –
 your nasty clip will be shared with public straight away.
> There’s no point in looking for me too – it won’t result in any success. Transactions with cryptocurrency are completely anonymous and untraceable.
> There’s no point in reinstalling your OS on devices or trying to throw them away. That won’t solve the issue,
 since all clips with you as main character are already uploaded on remote servers.

Things that may be concerning you:
> That funds transfer won’t be delivered to me.
 Breathe out, I can track down everything right away, so once funds transfer is finished,
 I will know for sure, since I interminably track down all activities done by you (my Trojan virus controls all processes remotely, just as TeamViewer).
> That your videos will be distributed, even though you have completed money transfer to my wallet.
Trust me, it is worthless for me to still bother you after money transfer is successful. Moreover, if that was ever part of my plan, I would do make it happen way earlier!

We are going to approach and deal with it in a clear manner!

In conclusion, I’d like to recommend one more thing… after this you need to make certain you don’t get involved in similar kind of unpleasant events anymore!
My recommendation – ensure all your passwords are replaced with new ones on a regular basis.