This particular “sextortion” scam has proliferated after reports of hacks to Google’s Nest cameras and Amazon’s Ring cameras. Cybersecurity company Mimecast said it intercepted more than 1,600 scam emails involving the new tactic in only a two-day period, from January 2 to January 3.
“It starts out with a single email saying ‘we’ve got some nude photos of you,” said Kiri Addison, head of data science at Mimecast.