Cofense Issues Warning on ‘Sextortion’ Email Campaign

Cofense, a provider of phishing defense services announced publication of a database of more than 200 million compromised email accounts being targeted by a “sextortion” scam. The company said it detected a “for rent” botnet in June that is used primarily to send the scam emails, and is “monitoring the  botnet’s activity on a daily basis to observe changes in the malware it is spreading as well as tracking new email addresses being targeted for sextortion phishing emails.” Cofense said it has determined that more than $1.5 million in payments were made to bitcoin wallets this year in connection with sextortion campaigns.