In a case that brings to light the need for tough cyber laws and the lax state of cyber security for citizens in India, cyber scammers have threatened a 30-year-old woman in Jabalpur district to pay up Rs 2 crore in Bitcoins to keep them from uploading her pictures on pornographic websites.
According to a Times of India report, the origin of the mail has been traced to Philippines and the police registered a case on Wednesday after receiving the complaint.
“This seems to be mischief. The complainant is being blackmailed by miscreants who are threatening to upload her pictures on obscene sites if she fails to meet their demand. We are trying to trace the culprit,” Ashish, SP Jabalpur, was quoted by Times of India as saying.
The report further stated that the woman, who belongs to a prominent family, received the ransom call via email.
The police said that scammers threatened the woman that they would post her pictures on social media and send them to her family and friends, besides uploading on pornographic websites, if she doesn’t pay the ransom.
“The recipient has been instructed to pay in Bitcoins with an extremely tight deadline,” said a police official.
The police also admitted that investigating this case would not be easy.
“In such cases, it has been found that accused use TOR web browser, making it harder to trace their servers. Using Bitcoins as a payment option makes tracing the money more complex,” said the police official.
TOR is a web browser which aims to conceal its users' identities and their online activity from surveillance by separating identification and routing.
