Overview
The victim expects to avoid public humiliation and shame over alleged webcam video of them, or other sexual or compromising material, being exposed.
How It Works
The scammer contacts the victim, usually through email or text message, stating that they have obtained webcam footage of the victim in some embarrassing situation.
The scam is that there is no video or material and the story is a front for extortion.
The scammer will often use a piece of data about the victim, such as a birth date or an old password found in a data breach, to try to make their claims seem more realistic.
Related Articles
Sextortion emails: how to protect yourself, National Cyber Security Centre (UK)
Sextortion Scam Uses Recipient’s Hacked Passwords, Krebs on Security
Related Scams
6.1 Serious Crime Accusation Scam: Both scams rely on claims of untoward or illegal behavior by the victim, and similar psychology. The Webcam Video scam emphasizes the threat of public humiliation and impersonating a hacker, while the Serious Crime Accusation Scam emphasizes the threat of criminal charges and impersonates a government official.
Note that this is different from other extortion scams such as 6.2 Underage Dating Accusation Scam, and 8.4 Relationship Blackmail Scam, in that there is no pre-existing relationship between the victim and the scammer. Instead, the email usually arrives out of the blue in a spray-and-pray or spray-from-breach fashion.
Related Crime Schemes
A particular instance of this scam may embed one or more of these related schemes.
Extortion: Extortion refers to any scheme that uses a threat of additional damage to extract payment from the victim.
Victim Targeting Context
The scammer may use one or more of the following techniques to reach the victim.
Spray and Pray / Scattered: The scammer approaches many victims at once such as through bulk email or SMS.
Semi-Targeted Collection: The bait (initial reachout) is sent out to people in a collection harvested online, for example from some data breach or corporate directory.
Social Engineering: Psychological Manipulations
The scammer may use one or more of these psychological techniques to accomplish the scam.
Shame: The scammer tries to make the victim feel some shame or embarrassment in order to get them to go along with the scam.
Threats: The scammer employs threats to increase fear in the victim so that they will go along with the scam. Threats can include financial loss, legal action, arrest, account closure, extortion, blackmail.
Social Engineering: Impersonation Techniques
The scammer may impersonate one or more of the following groups as part of the scam.
Technical Support / Tech: The scammer impersonates a technical support worker or tech company.