What is “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities” e-mail spam

Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities email spam is a type of sextortion scam that attempts to intimidate recipients into paying a ransom, often in the form of cryptocurrency, by falsely claiming that their device has been hacked and that private or compromising information will be made public. These scams exploit psychological manipulation, creating urgency and fear to coerce victims into compliance. Spam campaigns typically infect computers through malspam, which involves sending malicious emails to a large number of recipients. These emails often contain harmful attachments or links that, when opened, download malware onto the victim’s device. Once infected, the malware can steal sensitive data, spy on activities, or even give attackers remote control over the system. Users might be tricked into clicking these links or downloading attachments by the convincing nature of the email, which often impersonates legitimate entities or uses alarming messages. To prevent such infections, it is crucial to use reliable antivirus software, avoid opening suspicious emails, and keep all systems updated.

Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities e-mail spam

E-mail contents
Email text
Subject: Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities.
Hi there!
I am a professional hacker and have successfully managed to hack your operating system.
Currently I have gained full access to your account.
In addition, I was secretly monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months.
The thing is your computer was infected with harmful spyware due to the fact that you had visited a website with porn content previously. â•­ á‘Ž â•®
Let me explain to you what that entails. Thanks to Trojan viruses, I can gain complete access to your computer or any other device that you own.
It means that I can see absolutely everything in your screen and switch on the camera as well as microphone at any point of time without your permission.
In addition, I can also access and see your confidential information as well as your emails and chat messages.
You may be wondering why your antivirus cannot detect my malicious software.
Let me break it down for you: I am using harmful software that is driver-based,
which refreshes its signatures on 4-hourly basis, hence your antivirus is unable to detect it presence.
I have made a video compilation, which shows on the left side the scenes of you happily masturbating,
while on the right side it demonstrates the video you were watching at that moment..áµ”.áµ”
All I need is just to share this video to all email addresses and messenger contacts of people you are in communication with on your device or PC.
Furthermore, I can also make public all your emails and chat history.
I believe you would definitely want to avoid this from happening.
Here is what you need to do - transfer the Bitcoin equivalent of 850 USD to my Bitcoin account
(that is rather a simple process, which you can check out online in case if you don't know how to do that).
Below is my bitcoin account information (Bitcoin wallet): 12nEVuGNtRFMVjeVmLtD4nt2sHX68S47yH
Once the required amount is transferred to my account, I will proceed with deleting all those videos and disappear from your life once and for all.
Kindly ensure you complete the abovementioned transfer within 50 hours (2 days +).
I will receive a notification right after you open this email, hence the countdown will start.
Trust me, I am very careful, calculative and never make mistakes.
If I discover that you shared this message with others, I will straight away proceed with making your private videos public.
Good luck!

Risks of interacting with “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities” e-mail spam

Interacting with the “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities” email spam poses significant risks. This sextortion scam is designed to exploit your fear and privacy concerns, potentially leading to financial losses if you comply with the extortion demands. Responding to the email can confirm to the scammers that your email address is active, making you a target for further malicious attempts. Additionally, clicking on any links or downloading attachments from such emails can result in malware infections, compromising your device and personal data. It’s crucial to avoid engaging with these emails and instead, report them to the relevant cybersecurity authorities while ensuring your system is protected with up-to-date security software.

  1. Download Anti-Spam and Anti-Malware Tools
  2. Mark unwanted e-mail messages as Spam
  3. Delete Spam letters
  4. Unsubscribe from e-mail campaigns
  5. Change your e-mail address and forward it
  6. Final tips

1. Download Anti-Spam Tool

There are special programs designed to protect yourself against various threats arriving at e-mail. Third-party software providing advanced anti-spam algorithms and filtering tools will be good and more reliable protection in addition to the standard capabilities of many e-mail services. One of the world leaders in anti-spam protection is MailWasher Pro. It works with various desktop applications and provides a very high level of anti-spam protection and can stop “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities” e-mail scam.

Download MailWasher Pro

2. Download Anti-Malware Tool

To make sure there are no malware already installed on your PC you should check it with advanced antimalware. Even if you have standard anti-virus protection, scan with quality anti-malware can be helpful as it has different database and algorithms designed to find and remove viruses and bloatware wide-spread among regular users. We recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware:

Download Malwarebytes

1. Mark e-mail as Spam

If an e-mail message has not been put to the “spam” or “junk” folder itself, then users can do it themselves in just a couple of steps. Marking e-mail as spam will let your e-mail service know how to treat the unwanted sender next time. All further messages received from the spam-marked address will be located in the appropriate folder already without your help. Here is how:

Gmail:

  1. Open your Gmail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
  2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
  3. Then, click on the stop sign icon (the one with an exclamation mark) on top.

Yahoo! Mail:

  1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
  2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
  3. Then, click on the Spam icon on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

  1. Open your Microsoft Outlook and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
  2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
  3. Then, click on Junk and Block afterward.

Apple Mail:

  1. Open your Apple Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
  2. Click on it and choose the Junk Mail (trash can with “X”) icon.

2. Delete Spam letters

You can also clear your “spam” or “junk” folder from all the collected such letters. It is always good to maintain your e-mail clean and without trash that clutters even your spam folders. This is how you can wipe it:

Gmail:

  1. Open your Gmail and go to Spam on sidebar.
  2. If you want to wipe all the spam letters at once, click Delete All Spam Messages Now.
  3. If you want to do it selectively, click on the message you need and choose Delete forever.

Yahoo! Mail:

  1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
  2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click Delete on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

  1. Open your Microsoft Outlook and navigate to Junk Email on the sidebar.
  2. Then, click on Empty folder to clear all spam messages.

Apple Mail:

  1. Open your Apple Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
  2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click the Trash can icon on top.

3. Unsubscribe from e-mail campaigns

Many websites offer users to enter their e-mail address in exchange for exclusive content notifications, and tons of other marketing stuff. Over some time, regular users can subscribe to multiple resources that bombard your inbox and spam folder with continuous messages. This can be stopped by unsubscribing to them. Many messages, if opened, have a small gray hyperlink or button “Unsubscribe”. Clicking on it should unsubscribe you from letters you have been receiving for some time. Note that some intentionally malicious letters may use fake “Unsubscribe” buttons to deceive users into downloading malware or visiting suspicious pages. Therefore, remember to always stay on alert!

You can also do the following to unsubscribe to multiple newsletters in Gmail at once:

  1. Open your Gmail and type Unsubscribe into the search box on top.
  2. Then, click on the Show search options icon on the right end of the search box.
  3. Click on Create filter and select checkboxes next to Delete it and Apply filter to matching conversations.
  4. After selecting, finish by clicking on Create filter.

This will lead to all previously subscribed messages evaporating from your flood list in seconds. No more letters of such will appear in your Inbox or other folders again.

4. Change your e-mail address and forward it

It is sometimes hard to get rid of all spam in case of an e-mail breach. Receiving unreasonably high numbers of spam could mean your e-mail was leaked to large masses of spamming campaigns grateful to use it. Victims of this can quite easily avoid it by creating a new e-mail address and forwarding incoming e-mails from their old address. Don’t worry, this will not redirect abnormal streams of spam to this new address, but only normal messages you received on your behalf. It is also worth notifying people you had close contact with that you changed your e-mail address, so they do not get scared after receiving a message from an unknown address.

  1. First, you should begin with creating a new account for the e-mail service you use (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or Apple Mail).
  2. Then, log back into your old account, go to Settings and Add a forwarding address. In Gmail, these settings can be found in the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab. Something similar should be in other services as well.
  3. Enter the newly created e-mail address and click Next > Proceed > OK.
  4. You will then receive a verification message in that newly created address. Make sure you click on it.

If you also want to forward a copy of already existing e-mails, do the following:

  1. Go back to the settings page for the Gmail account you want to forward messages from, and refresh your browser.
  2. Navigate to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.
  3. Choose what you want to happen with the Gmail copy of your emails. It is recommended to choose Keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox. Click Save changes at the end.

All done and dusted! Now, all new messages tied to the previous e-mail will be sent to your new address.

Final tips

There is always a good practice to have personal and business e-mail accounts separately. If you are active on forums, Q&A sites, participate in link building you will probably need another account for that. Major e-mail services and applications like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Apple Mail and Outlook already have strong built-in anti-spam technologies, however, we recommend special software like MailWasher Pro to fight spam campaigns like “Your personal data has leaked due to suspected harmful activities”.

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James Kramer
Hello, I'm James. My website Bugsfighter.com, a culmination of a decade's journey in the realms of computer troubleshooting, software testing, and development. My mission here is to offer you comprehensive, yet user-friendly guides across a spectrum of topics in this niche. Should you encounter any challenges with the software or the methodologies I endorse, please know that I am readily accessible for assistance. For any inquiries or further communication, feel free to reach out through the 'Contacts' page. Your journey towards seamless computing starts here