I was, perhaps we all were, getting this email “hi I’m a master hacker, know everything about you yadda, yadda” But the funny thing was at the end of the email they would show me a password, claiming it was mine, but it wasn’t. Kinda blew the “hackers” credibility right there. So would some doofus write back and correct the “master hacker”? Some of these ‘scams’ just don’t make sense.
Think 10s of thousands, and yeah, that was my presumption. I don’t use anything that looks remotely like a word or phrase anymore. Not for a long time. But I bet there are people out there, bless them, that do. And those are the marks these scammers are looking for.
I was, perhaps we all were, getting this email “hi I’m a master hacker, know everything about you yadda, yadda” But the funny thing was at the end of the email they would show me a password, claiming it was mine, but it wasn’t. Kinda blew the “hackers” credibility right there. So would some doofus write back and correct the “master hacker”? Some of these ‘scams’ just don’t make sense.
I imagine they write a very common password and between the hundreds of potential victims there will be someone who actually uses it
Think 10s of thousands, and yeah, that was my presumption. I don’t use anything that looks remotely like a word or phrase anymore. Not for a long time. But I bet there are people out there, bless them, that do. And those are the marks these scammers are looking for.
They can also pull from breach lists. If xyz hacker posts a list of email and passwords online you’ve got a pretty good starting point.