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Speaker 1: The latest email scam raising eyebrows because it contains personal

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Speaker 1: information one of your real passwords. What's going on? I'm

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Speaker 1: Rich Demiro, this is Rich on Tech. Usually you can

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Speaker 1: spot a scam email pretty quickly. You see the poor grammar,

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Speaker 1: the spelling mistakes, and some of the things in the

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Speaker 1: email just don't add up. But spammers and scam artists,

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Speaker 1: they just keep upping their game, and their latest attempt

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Speaker 1: is pretty unique. I got a lot of emails about

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Speaker 1: this one, So here we go. The email starts out

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Speaker 1: strong with something like I won't beat around the bush,

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Speaker 1: I know that your password is, and then there it

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Speaker 1: is one of your passwords. The rest of the email

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Speaker 1: is a blackmail attempt. It says that it has some

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Speaker 1: compromising video of you taken from your computer's webcam during

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Speaker 1: a visit to an adult website. The video will be

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Speaker 1: released to friends and family if you don't pay up

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Speaker 1: a ransom, and the amount varies, but the email asks

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Speaker 1: for payment in bitcoin. Now this is where I think

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Speaker 1: the email sort of loses it. What average person getting

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Speaker 1: this email is going to be able to figure out

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Speaker 1: not only how to buy bitcoin, but also how to

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Speaker 1: send it to an anonymous spammer. Now, there are many

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Speaker 1: variations of the email going around. One has nineteen that's right,

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Speaker 1: nineteen steps on how to buy bitcoin and send it

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Speaker 1: to the proper address. That's a lot of work for

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Speaker 1: an anonymous email, but still, with one of the top

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Speaker 1: adult websites registering over sixty million visitors a day, the

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Speaker 1: email might certainly have some folks wondering if it could

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Speaker 1: be real. By the way, the scam isn't just being

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Speaker 1: delivered by email. People are also getting the same blackmail

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Speaker 1: message printed out and delivered to their home address through

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Speaker 1: the regular mail. So what's happening here? How did they

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Speaker 1: get your password? The passwords are likely pulled from recent

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Speaker 1: hacks of major websites, and there have been many high

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Speaker 1: profile hacks at really popular sites. So all the scammers

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Speaker 1: need to do is find one of these lists that

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Speaker 1: contain a combination of emails and passwords and then mail

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Speaker 1: merge them with the scam email and send them off.

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Speaker 1: Bottom line, you can ignore the email, but there are

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Speaker 1: some very important lessons to be learned here. First off,

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Speaker 1: don't reuse passwords. I know this is tempting since it's easy,

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Speaker 1: but these days it is not a good idea. Basically,

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Speaker 1: if one site is hacked, the bad guys can take

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Speaker 1: your password from that site and try it at various

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Speaker 1: other websites. The best thing to do is use a

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Speaker 1: password manager. These are little apps that you install on

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Speaker 1: your computer, phone, and tablet and they generate strong, random

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Speaker 1: passwords and remember them for you. Then when you go

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Speaker 1: to that site, you can copy and paste your use

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Speaker 1: your name and password into it from the password manager,

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Speaker 1: or the password manager might just fill in the password

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Speaker 1: for you, depending on what type of device you're using.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind you'll also want to protect your log

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Speaker 1: into the password manager with what's called two factor authentication.

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Speaker 1: This means when you log in, you're going to get

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Speaker 1: a text to your cell phone with a special code

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Speaker 1: that you'll have to enter before your login can proceed.

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Speaker 1: The idea here is that a hacker might have access

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Speaker 1: to your password, but hopefully they don't also have access

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Speaker 1: to your phone, so they won't get that code, and

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Speaker 1: then they can't type it in and the log in

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Speaker 1: won't go through. And if it sounds like a lot

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Speaker 1: of work, well it sort of is. But that's the point.

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Speaker 1: Think about the information you're protecting these days, photos, documents,

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Speaker 1: banking and all of your private info. It's all online

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Speaker 1: and in the cloud. So two apps to look into,

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Speaker 1: last Pass, which is free, and dash Lane, which costs

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Speaker 1: sixty dollars a year. Another popular password manager is called

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Speaker 1: one password, that's the number one and password. There you

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Speaker 1: have it. The latest email scam, plus how to protect

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Speaker 1: yourself from similar attempts to steal your money or more,

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Speaker 1: because once you realize the patterns here, you can help

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Speaker 1: protect yourself. If you want to see the email, you

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Speaker 1: can go to my website it's richon tech dot tv,

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Speaker 1: or you can check the show notes for a link.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, and please let your friends

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Speaker 1: know about the show by taking a screenshot of the

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Speaker 1: podcast and then sharing it to your Instagram stories. And

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Speaker 1: don't forget to tag me so I can share it

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Speaker 1: to my stories. All right, I'm Rich dmiro. I'll talk

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Speaker 1: to you real soon