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Ashley Madison bitcoin ransom: Cheaters are now being blackmailed demanding bitcoin.

Users of the infidelity website, Ashley Madison are now being blackmailed, threatening exposure to their significant others. Within 3 days of the original dump on the dark-web, users of the site have started receiving emails, threatening their exposure to their partners or employers. A ransom of 1 bitcoin is then requested.

New Scam

Within hours a new scam was created. Individuals, scared that their email address is on the exposed database have been going to websites that have been set up to “scan the database”.  Like the one below.

{WE DO NOT KNOW IF THIS SITE IS LEGIT } You can try here https://ashley.cynic.al/

Ashley Madison bitcoin ransom only ?

It seems this practise has now evolved and even users that have never heard of Ashley Madison are now embroiled in the saga.

What happens though is that this has nothing to do with Ashley Madison, and that it is simply a website harvesting legit email addresses.

“There is going to be a dramatic crime wave of these types of virtual shakedowns, and they’ll evolve into spear-phishing campaigns that leverage crypto malware. The same criminals who enjoy deploying ransomware would love to use this data.” – Tom Skellerman, Trend Micro.

Read more on Reddit

Other News

Sharp drop in bitcoin value

MT. Gox CEO re-arrested

Frenchman Mark Karpeles, the former CEO of the now closed bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, has been re-arrested on charges of embezzlement.

According to local media reports, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police arrested Karpeles under a new arrest warrant earlier on Saturday. Whispers of a re-arrest first came to light Friday, last week, amid speculation that he had embezzled ¥321m (R28m) of customer deposits to fund personal pet projects and and extravagant bachelor lifestyle.

Bungled

It seems a bit bungled, possibly due to the extreme difficulty in understanding, applying and interpreting the law around virtual currency. Karpeles has been in custody for the last three weeks, had to be released, and has now been re-arrested. The new arrest warrant will mean Karpeles may now be held in custody again for another 3 weeks or so.

He was first arrested at the beginning of August amid claims he had manipulated volumes on Mt. Gox prior to its demise in February 2014.

E-coin Debit Cards

E-coin is now introducing an affiliate program to all card holders. The program is structured where affiliates will earn 10% of gross fees on their referrals in the first year, and 5% for every year after that; the referrer will be able to earn bitcoins from every card load transaction made forever.

Consumers who sign up from a personalized link will also benefit from a 25% discount when ordering their cards, making the rewards a two-way street.  All referrals and commissions are earned in real time and can be seen from your account page to quickly track who you are earning Bitcoin from.

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