How to stop Pegasus Spyware email spam?

ziyada160 wrote:

I just received scammed email

Mark it as spam (junk), and move on with your day.

i received one of these today.

i always ignore them.

if they truly hacked my system..they'd be able to rip me off and steal everything without sending some warning..

smh these 'hackers' aren't very clever..

[Edited by Moderator]

Linz23deport Said:

“This just happened to me an hour ago. Requesting money or a video will be released.”

———-

Report this to the Federal Government:

It’s a scam. I got the same thing, but from a more political spectrum. So, report it to the FTC: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/. Your report will be in their database, and they’ll have something to go by when then catch these punks.

No. All they did was spoof your email address as the sender. Crooks and spammers have been doing that for not just years, but decades.

pattty3 wrote:

I got the same message. They told me to not to contact the police. Lol I was talking a week ago with a guy from the home security. I will contacting him. I don’t have anything to hide. I am in the nurse school. Wow what a scammer. Asking to send money.

Yes, you very much do have things to hide. Everybody does. Not related to this “pervert” mail message and its creative fiction, but everybody has details best left unshared.

Some details to ponder: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html

In the medical field, patient info is best either not collected, securely deleted, or kept private, too.

Here? Mark as junk and get on with your life.

gizzard16 wrote:

I agree it is a scam however they do have all my information in the email though the ss# is all x’d out but for the last two numbers which are wrong. Lastly a picture of the house across the road. Its a picture of pine trees along my neighbors backyard fence. Odd those trees were cut down over a year ago, which tells me it is a street view likely google maps. Google earth car drive by here about 2 years ago i remember this a security alert from a security camera on my fence the recorded it going west

Anyway my information is out on the web because of a Llc company I owned. But for the trees and the SSN I would probably believe the email. Nope no gottcha not this time

Anybody that tells you the social security number is secret is someone best ignored.

The de facto US national ID number — the social security number — is not a useful authenticator. It’s not secret.

(For some of us, the assigned number is entirely predictable, given a few other already-public details.)

The clues that this is a scam are the urgency, the use of fear, and the use of very basic advertising and propaganda techniques, and the lack of actual proof of anything outside of what amounts to public data and record. The one thing that this scam claims to have — those photos — they don't actually show.

there is no videos ignore it and move on its a scam.

There is nothing more to do except delete the message.

Of course it is a scam. Just delete and move on with your day.

Yes.. it’s a scam. Delete it and move on

hoo273 wrote:

I got the same email this morning at 12.59am (Pacific time zone). Sounds like a phishing scam. But it is interesting that it was send to my IOx email. How did he or she find my email?

Visit https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and enter some email addresses of your acquaintance, and see which data breaches included those addresses.

This list is akin to what Apple does with their password security recommendations.

There’s more about an already-massive breach becoming known right now, involving Ticketmaster, Santander, and quote possibly multiple other vendors via Snowflake.

Still a scam. They have nothing.

Delete it. It’s a scam.

Marshu_boy wrote:

I know it’s a scam but how did they send an email to myself from my own id about Pegasus ?

Is that serious ? They can login to my emails and can changed everything?

The sender lied about Pegasus.

The sender lied about the photos.

The sender lied about the breach.

Yes, the sender even lied about the email sender.

The sender LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Well, that’s not entirely correct.

The sender didn’t lie about the relative difficulty of tracking the cryptocurrency, as those are largely for speculation and for criming, but relative difficulty also makes it hard for the sender to tell who sent them the cryptocurrency. But creative writer that sent that fiction doesn’t care about that detail, because, well, “free money”. But make one mistake with handling within the blockchain past present or future though, and your identity and your transaction history is fully exposed, so we can hope these writers of creative fiction are eventually exposed.

Sending mail addresses can be lies; faked, forged, or spoofed.

Calling and texting telephone numbers can be lies, too; can also be faked, forged, or spoofed.

And yes, I could be lying here.

The scammers sound more convincing due to the many data breaches over the past few years. The latest being a massive trove of Social Security data.

That gives crooks lots of information. One of the simplest is having your street address, which makes it drop dead easy to do a Google Maps search to get those pictures. Combine that with a valid email address and it all looks very convincing.

However, such as in your case, they don't really have enough information to zero the scam in. Like the incomplete SS number. Old street view images (which really just means the camera truck/car hasn't been through your area in a while).

At least you were aware it was a scam and knew to ignore it.