How it really happened : NINJIO Season 4, Episode 4, It's Not What You Think…

In NINJIO’s Season 4, Episode 4, the message is shocking and uncomfortable, threatening Stuart with the release of truly embarrassing material if he doesn’t pay hackers thousands of dollars in Bitcoin.  Trying to control his destiny, Stuart discusses the email with his boss – but it might not actually be what it seems.
 

BLACKMAIL SCAM USES PASSWORDS TO SCARE PEOPLE INTO PAYING BITCOIN.  DON’T FALL FOR IT.
Many of these scams threaten the end-user with old passwords; as Fortune discusses, these are often old, no longer active passwords pulled from other data breaches, like the LinkedIn breach in 2012.
GET AN EXTORTION SCAM EMAIL?  HERE’S WHAT TO DO
The Parallax discusses how these blackmail scams have evolved and their #1 piece of advice – ignore it.
HOW TO TELL IF AN EMAIL HAS BEEN SPOOFED
Checking the email headers is a sure way to verify if an email is spoofed; Techlicious goes over how to locate this information in additional email clients.
HOW TO AVOID A BITCOIN BLACKMAIL SCAM
In the US, the FTC has a call out for people receiving these blackmail messages to report them.
I GOT A PHISHING EMAIL THAT TRIED TO BLACKMAIL ME – WHAT SHOULD I DO?
The Guardian dives into the resources that users in the UK have to check for and combat these nefarious scams.