The scam involves an individual or group that will send out thousands of canned message emails to individuals on an email list obtained by various means and hope that a small number of receipients are fooled into thinking it is personalized, targeted, and a legitimate threat. Only a small number, less than one percent or recipients need be fooled for the scam to be profitable.
DO NOT BE FOOLED BY ANY MESSAGE LIKE OR REMOTELY SIMILIAR TO THE ONE BELOW. Believe me, even if you are naughty with your online habbits, you have not been targeted, and the nuns at the convent probably got the exact same email.
SAMPLE:
Hello! I'm is very good programmer, known in darkweb as cullen78. I hacked this mailbox more than 3 months ago, through it I infected your operating system with a virus (trojan) created by me and have been spying for you a very long time. I understand it is hard to believe, but I have full access to your account: You can check it yourself, I'm wrote you from yours account! Even if you changed the password after that - it does not matter, my virus intercepted all the caching data on your computer and automatically saved access for me. I have access to all your accounts, social networks, email, browsing history. Accordingly, I have the data of all your contacts, files from your computer, photos and videos. I was most struck by the intimate content sites that you occasionally visit. You have a very wild imagination, I tell you! During your pastime and entertainment there, I took screenshot through the camera of your device, synchronizing with what you are watching. Oh my god! You are so funny and excited! I think that you do not want all your contacts to get these files, right? If you are of the same opinion, then I think that $697 is quite a fair price to destroy the dirt I created. Send the above amount on my BTC wallet (bitcoin): 14DvFghvkzQujf5Kd5AL2VKjxaYm5KidxR As soon as the above amount is received, I guarantee that the data will be deleted, I do not need it. Otherwise, these files and history of visiting sites will get all your contacts from your device. Also, I'll send to everyone your contact access to your email and access logs, I have carefully saved it! Since reading this letter you have 48 hours! After your reading this message, I'll receive an automatic notification that you have seen the letter. Please do not try to answer me, the from-address is generated automatically! I hope I taught you a good lesson. Do not be so nonchalant, please visit only to proven resources, and don't enter your passwords anywhere! Good luck!
Unfortunately, there is no way to trace this individual via bitcoin. Furthermore, it is likely the individual scammer lives in a dirty backwards third world country without extradition to your country.
Trash the email and think nothing of it.
The occurrences of this particular scam has surged in 2019 reaching roughly 900% more Internet users as compared to the same time in the previous year. It is likely this scam and variants will continue to increase in occurrence.