Sextortion Money Trail Leads to Underbelly of Cybercriminal Activity: SophosLabs Report
By MYBRANDBOOK
Sophos published a SophosLabs article, Following the Money in a Massive “Sextortion” Spam Scheme, that shows how the funds extracted from victims led to an underbelly of cybercriminal activity. Researchers traced the origin of millions of sextortion spam emails launched between September 2019 and February 2020 and then analysed what happened to the money deposited by victims in attackers’ bitcoin wallets. The bitcoin extorted from the scams totalled approximately $500,000. SophosLabs believes this report is the first to trace a bitcoin haul from sextortion.
Sextortion is a widely used form of spam attack that accuses the recipient of visiting a pornographic website and threatens to share video evidence with their friends and family unless the recipient pays. In the examples analysed, recipients were asked to pay up to $800 in bitcoin into designated wallet addresses.
SophosLabs researchers worked with CipherTrace to track the flow of the money from these wallets. They found that the extorted funds were used to support subsequent illicit activity, such as transacting with dark web marketplaces and buying stolen credit card data. Other funds were quickly moved through a series of wallet addresses to be consolidated, put through “mixers” in an attempt to launder the transactions or converted to cash.
“The cybercriminal underworld is an intricate web and SophosLabs’ research shows how attackers used the money raised in one operation to invest in another,” said Tamás Kocsír, a security researcher at SophosLabs who led the research. “Sextortion scams prey on fear and this makes them an effective way of making quick money. Across the five months of our investigation we saw wave after wave of attacks, often taking place over the weekend and sometimes accounting for up to a fifth of all spam tracked at SophosLabs. And while most recipients either didn’t open the email or didn’t pay, enough of them did to net the attackers around 50.9 bitcoin, equivalent to nearly $500,000.”
SophosLabs Report is First to Trace Sextortion Bitcoin Haul
The scams exploited global botnets on compromised PCs to dispatch millions of spam emails to recipients around the world. Vietnam, Brazil, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Colombia, and Peru are the top 10 countries where these compromised computers were used to dispatch the spam messages, of which 81% were in English, 10% were in Italian, 4% were in German, 3.5% were in French, and 1.2% were in Chinese.
“Spam campaigns are relatively cheap and easy to implement, but the assumption that this means they are launched only by low-skilled, opportunistic attackers could be inaccurate,” said Kocsír. “Our research found that some of the scam emails featured innovative obfuscation techniques designed to bypass anti-spam filters. Examples of this include breaking up the words with invisible random strings, inserting blocks of white garbage text, or adding words in the Cyrillic alphabet to confuse machine scanning. These are not beginner techniques and they are a good reminder that spam attac
BREAKING NEWS
TECHNO TRENDS
Legal Battle Over IT Act Intensifies Amid Musk’s India Plans
The outcome of the legal dispute between X Corp and the Indian government c...
Wipro inks 10-year deal with Phoenix Group's ReAssure UK worth
The agreement, executed through Wipro and its 100% subsidiary,...
Centre announces that DPDP Rules nearing Finalisation by April
The government seeks to refine the rules for robust data protection, ensuri...
Home Ministry cracks down on PoS agents in digital arrest scam
Digital arrest scams are a growing cybercrime where victims are coerced or ...
E-Magazine
TECHNOTAINMENT
Hrithik Roshan to endorse RuPay as Brand Ambassador
RuPay is reportedly planning to feature Bollywood superstar Hrithik Rosha
India Today Group launches – AI Pop Stars
Staying true to our industry leadership position in using cutting-edge tech
MOVERS & SHAKERS
TelioLabs ropes in Phaniraj V A as the Group CEO
TelioLabs has announced the onboarding of Phaniraj V A as its new Group CE
Wipro Appoints Amit Kumar as Managing Partner and Global Head
Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading technology s
OPEN YOUR EYES
INTERVIEWS
Alpha Max offers high end solutions in the network space to en
The vision at Alpha Max is to attain quality as the trademark and create a
Delivering Critical Business Communication Solutions to Enterp
Arya Omnitalk and Syntel’s comprehensive suite of solutions and more than
HOT PICK
MSI Announces the availability of RTX 50 series of laptops in
MSI, the innovative computing manufacturer in gaming, creator
Nothing Phone (3a) goes on sale today, starting at Rs 19,999
The phone was launched on March 4, featuring a 50MP main, ultra-wide, and t
MAKE IN INDIA BRANDS
ZOHO CORPORATION PVT. LTD.
ADITYA INFOTECH LTD.
RELIANCE JIO INFOCOMM LTD.
EXATRON SERVERS MANUFACTURING PVT. LTD.
EMINENT CIO'S OF INDIA
ICONS OF INDIA
ICONS OF INDIA : SOM SATSANGI
With more than three decades in the IT Sector, Som is responsible for ...
Icons Of India : B.V.R. Subrahmanyam
A 1987 batch (Chhattisgarh cadre) Indian Administrative Service Office...
Icons Of India : Harsh Jain
Harsh Jain, the co-founder of Dream 11, the largest fantasy sports web...
PARTNER SPEAKERS
PSU
LIC - Life Insurance Corporation of India
LIC is the largest state-owned life insurance company in India...
IREDA - Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited
IREDA is a specialized financial institution in India that facilitates...
C-DAC - Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
C-DAC is uniquely positioned in the field of advanced computing...
VIDEOS
Top 25 Brands
Global Indian industry
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - NIKESH ARORA, Chairman CEO - Palo Alto Networks
Nikesh Arora, the Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, is steering ...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - AJAY BANGA, President - World Bank
Ajay Banga is an Indian-born American business executive who currently...
Indian Tech Talent Excelling The Tech World - Soni Jiandani, Co-Founder- Pensando Systems
Soni Jiandani, Co-Founder of Pensando Systems, is a tech visionary ren...
ITFORUM 2025
CMO of the Year
WOMEN LEADERSHIP
IMAGE GALLERY
TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY
MORE VIDEOS
ADVERTISEMENTS
TECHNOLOGY DISRUPTION
UNICORNS REVOLUTIONISING
of images belongs to the respective copyright holders
