A variation on social engineering is the email from a “professional hacker”. They “managed to hack your operating system.” Vague – would you not know what the OS is that you hacked? Oh my! They have “full access to your account”. What account? How do you know I am not running DOS 6.2 still? OK, maybe not, but I have many accounts… which one?
They have been “secretly monitoring all your activities and watching you for several months.” Good grief, man! Are you really that bored? Not much to see around here and I highly doubt it makes for any kind of entertainment. But wait… it must be true! After all they claim my “computer was infected with harmful spyware due to the fact that you had visited a website with porn content”. Really? When was this?
This professional then explains about Trojan horses, having access to all devices, seeing everything, and magically hearing it too even when there is no webcam or microphone. The good part? They have access to all “confidential information as well as your emails and chat messages”. Lay on the fear factor, brother.
So if they were professional and had the claimed access, why ask to transfer money to a bit coin wallet? Do it yourself! Ransomeware instead of story telling may be more effective. But wait! There is more! The message goes on to say “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.” Even more humorous – antivirus for DOS. Was that even a thing?
The message goes on to explain they made a video they will happily share to all contacts unless they are sent $790 USD in bitcoin. At least they are polite when they say “Kindly ensure you complete the above mentioned transfer within 50 hours (2 days +)”. Not so much when they threaten “If I discover that you shared this message with others” something bad will happen.
For their final entertainment they claim: “Trust me, I am very careful, calculative and never make mistakes.” Trust? Implies there was some sort of truth to the scam to begin with, which there isn’t. And mistakes? Well, true enough the grammar has improved but it really is a mistake. Remember, I still run DOS.