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This morning we noticed a disturbing email campaign attempting to scare recipients into making a large payment in exchange for human life.

These is not unlike the “sextortion” emails that claim to have indecent images/videos of you that the attacker threatens to send to your contact list. We have been seeing these type of emails being pumped out daily by the millions. 

At first, we thought this might be the new vector being used by the same attackers. However, this attack does not appear to have the bandwidth of the sextortion messages, which leads us to believe it may be a copycat of sorts.

In these emails, the sender informs the recipient that their “recruited mercenary” has placed an explosive device inside their building which they plan to detonate unless a Bitcoin payment in the amount of $20,000 is made to the BTC address provided in the message.

These messages appear to be emanating from Moscow and the poor wording does fit with someone that is not a native English speaker, although these could always be false flags.

We did particularly enjoy the legal disclaimer (highlighted in yellow) that the sender included in this message - that they don’t accept liability for any other terrorism unless it is their own.

We have seen similar type threats made over the years, and none have come to pass so we can say with a high degree of certainty that these are based in fiction and are merely a desperate money grab.