Scam Emails "Your Cloud Storage Was Compromised" - How to remove

Did you get an email threatening that “your cloud storage was compromised”? The writer of the email says that they will find photos and info you’d like to stay secret and send it all to your contacts – unless you pay them $2000.

The “your cloud storage was compromised” emails are extortion, but they are also scams. The people who write these emails do not really have access to your files. They’re bluffing, hoping that you will pay the ransom.

So, if you get an email that says that “your cloud storage was compromised”, ignore it.

About the “your cloud storage was compromised” scam:

Classification	Extortion, scam.
Possible harm caused by the scam	Wasted time, stress, lost money, private information exposed to scammers.
How to protect yourself from scams	Protect your accounts with multi-factor authentication, block malicious websites and ads, use antivirus programs (such as Spyhunter for PC, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for Mac, others).
How to deal with the scam	Mark the email as spam.

How to recognize scam emails?

The “your cloud storage was compromised” email is an extortion scam. The writer says that they got access to your cloud storage, even deleted files, and copied your data. They ask you to pay $2000 in Bitcoin or else they will find embarrassing material and send it to your contacts.

You can find many reports of this scam on Bitcoinabuse.com: there, the Bitcoin address given by the email is being reported by people who received extortion emails asking for money to be sent to the same address.

The email might look like it came from your own address, but this does not mean that the writer has your email passwords. It is possible to spoof the email sender

The text of the emails might go something like this:

Greetings,
I am sorry to inform you that your cloud storage was compromised. Let’s get the biggest elephant out of the room first. I am not a part of shady group that encrypts your data and extorts money leaving you no choice. But I HAVE copied your data. The choice is yours.

Here is what happened, one of the websites where you have an account was breached. After that I got access to your password from that breach and with some advanced manipulations and bruteforce extracted your backup data. The data set that I have downloaded and parsed contains pictures, documents, contacts and more including some deleted files. I don’t have much time and dedication NOW to go through all of the files, but with some fast looking I did – I am sure that you dont want some of them to be seen by other people.

What I can do if you don’t follow my instructions is simple. I can send from your name to your contacts the most interesting content, it’s the least I can do. You may care or not, it’s up to you to decide. If you decide that you don’t care, I will go through all files, and who knows what more I may find more. Maybe you have some confidential business information. Or GREAT nudes and videos.

If I spend more time on your case, the amount will be 3 times bigger. Depends on the content. So let’s make it simple. You pay me $2000 USD, I delete the data, you change your password. Business as usual, use Bitcoin to make the transfer. 13gdUqbxkC2TQPmaHLuMsTatATz6jHCwkp Account is unique and you have some reasonable time to make the payment.
Take care.

The “your cloud storage was compromised” emails are scams. The people behind them do not have anyone’s files, they’re just trying to scare people into sending them money. The scam is similar to other extortion scams, such as I know that you visit 18+ content!, Your account was hacked!, the Save Yourself emails – sextortion messages and leaked passwords.

What’s different about the “your cloud storage was compromised” emails is that they’re so vague. They’re not about stolen passwords, nudes, or compromising videos. They threaten to release “the most interesting content”, leaving it for you to imagine what it could be.

This could make the “your cloud storage was compromised” scam more convincing in some cases.

How to deal with the “your cloud storage was compromised” email scam

The safest thing to do is simply to ignore the email. Just mark it as spam.

If you were to reply to the scammers, they might like to know that your email address is indeed active and that you are a possible target for future scams. It’s safer to not reply.

How did the scammers get your email address? They could have guessed it or got it from a leak (Haveibeenpwned.com). There’s nothing much to be done about it.

Here are a few things you can do to protect your privacy in the future:

• use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication to protect your online accounts,
• block malicious websites and ads (you can use ad blockers and malicious site blockers),
• protect your devices from malware with anti-malware tools (Spyhunter for Windows, Spyhunter for Mac, Combo Cleaner for macOS, others).

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