A newly identified Zoom scam warns users that they will be the next Jeffrey Toobin if they do not pay up

Discovered by Bitdefender Antispam Lab and reported on its Hot for Security blog, the Sextortion scam has been active since at least October 20 Primarily targeting approximately 250,000 people in the US, the scammers threaten victims with videos of themselves "manipulating themselves"

If you receive such an email, don't worry Delete it and report it to the authorities, and the perpetrators will be caught

If you haven't received one, it looks something like this, with the innocent-sounding subject line "About Zoom Conference Calls," which seems fairly unremarkable

The message uses a lot of very timely elements and tries to convince the user to pay for a compromat that doesn't exist; it mentions COVID-19 and the sender's unemployment and impending eviction

Zoom has become so popular in recent months to keep businesses functioning properly that several Zoom security issues have been widely reported

The email also mentions Jeffrey Toobin, a timely reference to a New Yorker columnist and legal expert who was found on Zoom by a colleague where he was "working" in a similar fashion to what the scammers are describing

Taken together, this makes the email more compelling In return for disposing of the alleged footage, the scammers demand $2,000 in bitcoin within three days Otherwise, they will send what they have to your colleagues and friends

Of course, there is likely no video footage Many of these e-mails, and similar scams before them, are sent at random in the hopes of finding someone who will be convinced enough to pay Since the addresses were obtained from other data leaks, there is no new security risk in sending such emails