US law enforcement authorities are urging Americans to remain calm after a massive spam campaign carrying bomb threats has scared people and caused building evacuations all day across the country. The source of all problems is a spam campaign that got underway today, and which was sent to millions of email inboxes, primarily in the US. The emails had different subject lines and various text variations, but all carried the same threat. Extortionists threatened to blow up a person’s workplace or building unless the person paid the equivalent of $20,000 in Bitcoin to a specified Bitcoin address.
Expert Comments below:
Tim Erlin, VP at Tripwire:
“All it takes is one successful payout to make this scheme worthwhile for the perpetrator. This is a high-risk extortion attempt because there’s no doubt it would garner significant attention from law enforcement.
At this point, it’s unclear if there’s an additional motive beyond extortion. It is clear, however, that disruption has been a consequence.
There will be an in-depth investigation into who is behind this campaign, and it’s likely they’ll be identified.”
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