Hacker behind 'hello pervert' scam and potential camera access

You haven't been hacked and they can't access your camera. They are total SCAM artists and I can't tell you how many times I and many many others have gotten this scam message. They are hoping you believe them and will pay their ransom, which is nothing but a payday for them, and the reality is they don't know you, they have no clue what you look at on your iPhone, nor can they send anything to anyone you know.

Ignore them, block them and don't worry about it.

It’s creative fiction, not reality. There are no photos, no videos, no compromises, and no hacks.

This scam, from 2024: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/sextortion-scams-now-include-photos-of-your-home/

This scam, from 2018: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/sextortion-scam-uses-recipients-hacked-passwords/

A sampling of some scams from Apple: Recognize and avoid social engineering schemes including phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support

A veritable smorgasbord of scams: https://reddit.com/r/scams

Search the Apple forums and elsewhere for “pervert” or such, too. Lots of discussions of this and similar ongoing spam campaigns, and spam as a business.

If the businesses behind this and other creative fiction spam and popups around the ‘net had what they claimed, they’d show you some of the photos or videos. Or they’d just upload everything, steal your money, and not bother with the rest.

Mark as spam, and get on with rest of your day.

U. K. National Cyber Security Centre – Sextortion phishing scams: How to protect yourself

"The criminals behind these attacks do not know if you have a webcam, or know if you've visited adult websites. They are attempting to scare their victims into paying a ransom, and will send millions of emails in the hope that someone will pay. They'll often include technical sounding details to make the email sound convincing. It may also include a password the victim uses or has used."

This article recommends not communicating with the criminals – and immediately changing any passwords that the scam e-mail mentions.

oli152 wrote:

why does it want Litecoin instead of money???

Transactions involving cryptocurrency cannot be reversed.

That there can be no clawbacks makes that mechanism ideal for money laundering, ransomware, fraud, “rug pull” scams, and for criming more generally, while that detail also making cryptocurrencies rather less useful for other and more routine financial transactions.

Some cryptocurrencies including Litecoin have a public and immutable transaction record, which adds some potential future risks to the scammers around future forensic tracing of illegal activities. This should any mishandling or other exposures arise, and tie the activities back to specific people or organizations.

For more background, this from Nicolas Weaver (2022):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q&t=30s

Background on one of the (widely-hyped and now ~disappeared) cryptocurrency scams from a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

lobsterghost1 wrote:

It can't be recovered or traced back to them.

Scammers also like payments in gift card codes, for the same reason.

U. S. Federal Trade Commission – Avoiding and Reporting Gift Card Scams

"Only scammers will tell you to buy a gift card, like a Google Play or Apple Card, and give them the numbers off the back of the card. No matter what they say, that’s a scam. No real business or government agency will ever tell you to buy a gift card to pay them."

oli152 wrote:

Ty I was worried but how do they contact you, through websites or they just spam everything

They lie.

Spammers lie.

Advertisers, politicians, relatives, propagandists, phone callers and text-message senders, calling phone numbers and sending email addresses, web search engine results, and AI algorithms can all lie, too.

oli152 wrote:

Ty I was worried but how do they contact you, through websites or they just spam everything

They don't know you. But your phone number and email address are out there. Our numbers and email addresses are shared throughout the electronic world, even with folks we don't know or want to know.

This is a well known and very old scam.

it goes back to the days when webcams were first released, something like 30 years ago.

It can't be recovered or traced back to them.