We received this notification from Orihuela Town Hall and the local Neighbourhood watch.

Spanish National Police warn of a massive campaign of cyber-fraud attempts through extortion
during the current State of Alarm

I don’t know how many of you may have seen an Article in the Costa Blanca News last week, regarding a large on‑line attempt in Spain at extorting money from people, using Email Threats to shame the recipient, unless an amount of money is sent to the Sender, but it has prompted at least one of our Members to contact us to say that unfortunately they have been a victim of one of these attempts, although they realised in time that it was an unfounded request and has not paid out any money.

As with a lot of this type of online blackmail threats, the Sender claims initially to be a “lady” who has seen that the “target” has allegedly been visiting Pornographic Web Sites and watching her “performing”, which they have recorded and will send to everyone in the receivers Contacts List, unless they agree to pay nearly $2000 to them.

This Email is usually followed up with several more Emails, often written in a way as if they are from a man, threatening the same result if the demand is not conformed with and the Ransom paid.

The National Police have learned that, in just four days last week, more than 1,000 people in Spain have received emails in which cybercriminals have tried to commit this scam and have demanded amounts varying from $1500 – $2000.

Their advice, if you are unfortunate enough to receive an Email with this type of threat, is:

×    Don’t be alarmed or consider the threat to be real and DO NOT make any request for payment.

×    ALWAYS be suspicious of any email that may seem strange and/or from an unknown originating address.

×    Ideally, DO NOT open any Emails that you are unsure of.

×    Block and mark the Sender of the Emails as Spam.

×    If you open an Email like this by mistake, DO NOT “click” on any links in the body of the received Email, or  open any attachments sent with the Email.

×    Don’t answer any Emails received, or start any type of conversation with the “extortionists”.

×    AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, change your Email password for a stronger version (mixture of letters, capitals and numbers/special characters), as well as your Computer Login and any Applications that use a Password.

×    DELETE the Email and then DELETE the deleted Item in your Trash Folder.

The National Police Cyber Agents also have an email account, redesabierta@policia.es, where, if you wish, you can send a copy of this type of message, to be analysed individually by them.