Unknown extortionist demanded Bitcoin from Telegram channels, threatening to reveal inflated subscriber counts

Administrators of several Telegram channels that publish on economic and political topics received a letter from an unknown individual demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency. The Telegram channel «Как-то вот так» reports this.

The extortionist claims to possess information about inflated subscriber counts on the channel and threatens to hand over ‘screenshots and videos’ to ‘one serious outlet’. He demands that 0.5 BTC be paid to him by tomorrow noon.

“We see in this a new shadow economy: extortionists themselves inflate subscribers or views on victim channels, and then come with ‘evidence’ and demand money,” said the authors of “Как-то вот так”.

Since August 4, the overall view count of the post on Telegram has been shown only on the original source channel. The channel that reposted it shows only its own views. Because of bots, the actual view count on channels with a large subscriber base may differ significantly.

Earlier, ForkLog reported that the Canon corporation, whose cloud servers were attacked by ransomware, was the victim of the bitcoin extortionists.

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