Spam wave with bomb threat goes around

A large wave of spam with the threat that a bomb will go off unless an amount is paid in bitcoin is doing the rounds. Initially, mainly American companies received the spam, but now the messages would be received worldwide.

The e-mail mentions a bomb that is said to be in the building where the recipient is located. The bomb would be small, could be hidden anywhere and claimed many victims when it exploded. The recipient could avert the mischief if he pays $20,000 in bitcoin.

The sender claims his wallet to check whether payment has already been made every 35 minutes. Upon payment, the person who was ordered to smuggle the bomb in would withdraw. “We are not terrorists and do not take responsibility for explosions in other buildings,” the message ends, with necessary language errors.

There are emails with various bitcoin addresses with always slightly modified texts in circulation, for example referring to the bomb in ever different terms, such as ‘hexogen’ or ‘tronitrotoluene’. The FBI reports to be familiar with the bomb threats in various American cities. According to US-CERT, this is a worldwide email campaign and the agency advises not to pay or respond to the messages.

Several organizations in the US, such as universities and banks, took the bomb threat seriously and called in the police after evictions. He assumes it is a hoax.