Web Paint-by-Number Forum
Topic #1023: Beware - E-mail Scam
By Bryan (Cyclone)

#1: Bryan (Cyclone) on Feb 27, 2019

I was looking in my junk mail recently and found a message in there titled with a portion of my e-mail address and my password for this site. I have researched this, and instead of telling what the rest of the message says, I will instead link this: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/beware-of-extortion-scams-stating-they-have-video-of-you-on-adult-sites/

In other words, it's possible data might have been leaked from here that has resulted in everyone being told they had malware installed to record you having happy joy joy time on adult Web sites. Don't pay any attention to it. It's fake. However, if the password in the message is one you still use, STOP using it and change it immediately. That part of the topic comes from the data leak and the leak contained actual user names and passwords, which they are sending to the actual e-mail addresses to try to scam money with.

In my case, I am suspicious it might have been a result of an old data leak on Google a long time ago as I did use the password on Google as well, and changed from that one a long time ago. So I'm probably safe. Just don't want anyone here caught up in this as well.
#2: Joe (infrapinklizzard) on Feb 27, 2019
It's generally a good idea to change your password every so often anyway. Just remember the new one...

Valerie, do you know how the passwords are saved on this site? I can't imagine Jan would have stored them in a format that is recoverable by the sysadmin. However, cracking being what it is these days, even good password security of a few years ago can be vulnerable to new methods.
#3: Bryan (Cyclone) on Feb 28, 2019
It's also very possible it might not be related to this site at all. In any case, I have changed my password here anyway. I think it might have been an e-mail password at one point and changed a long time ago, as the other half of the topic section had the front portion of the e-mail address it was being sent to, so it might just be a Google breach. Even so, it doesn't hurt to be safe.
#4: Valerie Mates (valerie) on Jan 3, 2020
I just found this topic. I really detest that particular scam. The people sending out those messages definitely don't have adult videos from your computer. I get sent that message all the time, including at e-mail addresses that are not real accounts, and anyway, I don't have a camera on my computer and I don't watch porn. The messages are scary looking, but they are just empty threats.


The passwords for this site are stored one-way encrypted. The system administrator cannot read or decrypt them. It is very unlikely that the scammers who send these messages have gotten any passwords from here.

I'm sure you already know this, but good password hygiene is always a good idea: Use a different password on every site, and choose passwords that are long, to make them hard to guess.

I like the website haveibeenpwned.com . You can enter your e-mail address there and find out if it's been in any known data breaches.

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