An Email Says Someone Has Your Private Photos: What to Do
An email arrives. It says the sender has private photos or videos of you, and it demands payment in 48 hours. Most of these are mass-mailed bluffs, and the sender has never seen your phone.
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What do I need to know?
- A real sender proves it. They would attach a genuine photo or name something only you would know.
- A leaked password is not a hacked phone. Scammers copy addresses and old passwords from public data leaks.
- Paying does not end it. It tells them you will pay again.
How can I tell whether it is real?
- The email shows an old password of yours. That came from a breach of some other site.
- The message is generic and does not name a specific file.
- It claims to have used your camera. Phones do not work that way without malware, and iPhone shows a green dot when the camera is on.
- It has a countdown and a crypto address. Both are hallmarks of mass scams.
If the email includes a real photo of you, treat it as real and see the last section.
What should I do today?
- Do not reply and do not pay.
- Keep the email. Screenshot it with the sender address and any wallet address.
- Change your email password, and any account that used the same password. Settings → your name → Sign-In & Security → Change Password covers Apple Account.
- Turn on two-factor authentication for email and Apple Account.
- Check devices. Settings → your name lists every device signed in. Remove any you do not know.
- Report it. Use your national police cybercrime site, and mark the email as junk.
What if it contains a real photo of me?
Stop contact and keep everything. Report to the police and to the platform where the photo was shared. In the US, a minor's images go to the NCMEC tip line. Tell one trusted person so you are not alone with it.
How does a vault fit?
A vault cannot stop a scam email. It can make a real theft harder. Photos in Cryptile are not in your Photos library or your iCloud Photos, so an intruder in your Apple Account does not find them there.
What this doesn't protect against
Cryptile would not have stopped the email, and it cannot help if the photos were already shared with someone who leaked them. It does not protect photos kept elsewhere, or an unlocked vault on a phone someone is watching. Cryptile Send and shared vaults are coming and not available yet.
Do it with Cryptile
Cryptile keeps photos and videos encrypted with AES-256-GCM, under a key made on your device from a pattern only you know. There is no account and no server.
Cryptile is free to start, with encrypted iCloud backup included. Get an email when Cryptile is on the App Store