SANS ISC: Bombstortion?? Boomstortion?? - Internet Security | DShield

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SANS ISC InfoSec Forums

First sextortion, now bombstortion?

Today we have received a couple of reports of a new email based extortion message being delivered to email boxes.  In clumsy English, the message threatens that a bomb has been planted in your building, and if you don't pay $20000 in bitcoin, by the end of the day the bomb will be exploded.  This threat has caused a great deal of excitement, leading to lockdowns and evacuations in numerous cities in North America.

Sample email looks like:

---
Subject: Think twice

  There is the bomb (tronitrotoluene) in the building where your business is located. My recruited person constructed an explosive device under my direction. It has small dimensions and it is hidden very well, it is impossible to damage the supporting building structure by my bomb, but there will be many wounded people if it detonates.
My man is controlling the situation around the building. If any unnatural behavior, panic or emergency is noticed he will power the device.
I want to suggest you a deal. You send me $20'000 in Bitcoin and the bomb will not detonate, but do not try to fool me -I warrant you that I have to call off my man solely after 3 confirmations in blockchain network. 

My payment details (Bitcoin address)- 149oyt2DL52Jgykhg5vh7Jm1QpdpfuyVqd

You must pay me by the end of the workday. If the working day is over and people start leaving the building explosive will explode.
This is just a business, if I do not see the money and the bomb detonates, next time other commercial enterprises will send me a lot more, because this is not a single incident.
I wont enter this email. I check my Bitcoin wallet every 40 min and after seeing the payment I will order my mercenary to leave your district.

If an explosion occurred and the authorities see this letter:
We arent a terrorist society and do not assume responsibility for explosions in other places.
 

---

Other versions have shown the explosive as "Hexogen".

If anyone is willing to share email headers and/or BTC addresses from these messages I would appreciate it.  Please send to rwanner(at)isc.sans.edu.  If you could also include your location country, that could be interesting information.  

So far the bitcoin addresses I have seen show no payments.

This campaign is receiving a lot of interest from mainstream press as well. 

CNN (1) (2)

Brian Krebs has also posted.

US-CERT/NCCIC - has provided guidance on what you should do if you receive one of the bomb extortion emails.

Note: Sorry, I misread the original message and stated the ransom was 20000 BTC, when in fact it is $20000 in BTC. 

-- Rick Wanner MSISE - rwanner at isc dot sans dot edu - http://namedeplume.blogspot.com/ - Twitter:namedeplume (Protected)