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CYBER security experts in Bahrain have dealt with at least four cases of hackers blackmailing Internet users who visited pornographic websites.
The individuals from the UAE and Saudi Arabia were duped into making payments of up to $330 each in bitcoin, fearing their search history and their picture would be shared in the public domain.
Cyber security firm CTM360, located in the Seef District, said the “fake extortion” attack happened on Friday and Saturday and targeted employees of corporate companies in the GCC through an e-mail campaign.
“Our cyber security firm in Bahrain first responded to the attack from our clients in the region who received an e-mail in which the attacker claimed to have logged a victim’s visit to a pornographic website,” said CTM360 founder Mirza Baig.
“By visiting the website the used computer was infected with a virus that recorded the computer screen, as well as the individual’s face through the camera.
“The attacker then took the liberty of editing the two recordings into a split-screen capture.”
Mr Baig said the attacker was tracking the user’s online activity using a software that captures the search history – adding that all bitcoin wallets mentioned by the attacker had been recently set up and had either none or just a few transactions.
Believe
“We also found that the e-mail that was sent was written in broken English to give an impression that the attacker was not a native English speaker,” he said.
“It is likely that the attacker may have sent the adult dating or porn website link message to the same target.”
He said the hacker relied on the fact that many people open their e-mail on their smartphones or laptops which made victims believe they had been recorded by the camera in their device.
He explained that the scam was also reported in Australia and France.
Details of the e-mail sent by the attacker, who demanded money in return for deleting all the compromising evidence, was shared with the GDN.
The attacker also said in the emails that “contacting the police would not help” as he was only going to wait for one day for the ransom money before publishing the information.
CTM360 growth and strategy director Arsalan Iqbal said the cases dealt with by their firm were corporate clients working in the UAE and Saudi.
“We urge people in the region not to fall prey to such attacks by making payments as it does not guarantee whether the information will be stopped from being shared,” he said.
During the first quarter of this year, the Information and eGovernment Authority was capable of detecting nearly 27,000 attack attempts targeting government systems and almost 24 million threat emails.
The GDN reported in June that a computer virus wreaked havoc on firms around the world and in Bahrain. APM Terminals Bahrain, the operator of the Khalifa Bin Salman Port, along with logistics firm TNT Express were among the many firms that fell victim to the ransomware worm attack.
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