Lawyer’s porn horror: High-flying female legal expert is hit with a chilling email threatening to leak a video of her watching explicit videos
- Lawyer has been blackmailed by a hacker threatening to expose her ‘porn habits’
- Edwina Rowan, from Queensland, received the chilling email last weekend
- She was told to pay $1700 Bitcoins or face explicit videos of her being revealed
- Ms Rowan saw the funny side but said it would be easy for others to fall victim to
A high-flying female lawyer has been targeted by scammers threatening to leak footage of her watching explicit videos if she does not cough up thousands in Bitcoins.
Edwina Rowan, from Bundaberg, Queensland, received the chilling email on Saturday 12 January from an account titled ‘Horten Bastard’.
In the subject line there was a password that Ms Rowan had used for several accounts in the past.
The scammer told Ms Rowan he had used her password to hack her computer and record videos of her through the webcam.
Edwina Rowan, from Bundaberg, Queensland, received the chilling email on Saturday 12 January from an account titled ‘Horten Bastard’, claiming they had discovered her password
‘The email went on to say that my “porn habits” would be revealed to the world unless I met the princely sum of $1700 by way of Bitcoin,’ she told News Mail.
Ms Rowan – a lawyer who previously studied at The Australian National University, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology – then cancelled a number of her accounts and used an online password generator to create new logins.
However, she has since received further threats from the same account, all blackmailing her to make a payment or face having ‘shocking’ videos revealed to her family, friends and business contacts.
The scammer told her he had hacked her computer and filmed her watching ‘explicit’ material. ‘The email went on to say that my “porn habits” would be revealed to the world unless I met the princely sum of $1700 by way of Bitcoin,’ she said
Ms Rowan – a lawyer who previously studied at The Australian National University, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology – then cancelled a number of her accounts and used an online password generator to create new logins
Ms Rowan and her husband share a laptop and she said she doesn’t have a webcam.
She added that if they had somehow managed to record her at work, it would be a dull watch.
Her husband found the idea that she was watching porn and being filmed laughable, but Ms Rowan said she could see how a more vulnerable person might have fallen victim to the scam.
‘It plays on people’s fears…incriminating fears that might be disseminated to the world,’ she said.
If you or someone you know has been scammed online, you can report it at www.scamwatch.gov.au.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Edwina Rowan for further information.
Her husband found the idea that she was watching porn and being filmed laughable, but Ms Rowan said she could see how a more vulnerable person might have fallen victim to the scam