All UK Gmail and Yahoo issued with worrying new alert - 'delete' these emails now

A scary new alert has been issued to UK email users and anyone with a Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook account must take care when checking their inbox. This latest warning has been confirmed by the team at Action Fraud, who say they've seen a sudden surge in so-called 'extortion scams'.

At the start of this year, there were just 133 reports of UK consumers being targeted by these vicious messages, but this number suddenly exploded to over 2,900 reports by March.

It's a worrying statistic that's made even more concerning by what features in the emails. Once opened, users are faced with a message that suggests they have been visiting adult sites and the scammers have been watching their every move. They even claim to have evidence, which includes video recordings made via the victim's webcam.

This embarrassing footage will then be released to friends and family unless a ransom is paid.

To make things appear even more real and to add to the concern, the new emails often include personal information such as genuine passwords or home addresses. Action Fraud states that this personal information is usually real and has likely been obtained from historic breaches of personal data.

It's unclear how widespread the scam is but one victim has spoken about his experience, saying he had received an extortion email and was told to pay $500 (£380).

Luckily, he spotted it was a scam and deleted the message, but not before he suffered issues with his social media and bank accounts being targeted.

“Criminals will go to great lengths to make these types of extortion scams more convincing, including using a leaked password or home address in the phishing email to make it seem genuine.

“Follow our advice if you think you’ve received one of these phishing emails: forward it to [email protected] and delete the email after that. If you spot genuine personal information in an email, it is likely it came from an historic data breach – you can check if you’ve been affected by one in the past.

“Please contact your local police force if you have been a victim of extortion. Even if you have concerns someone may possess of intimate images of you, you should tell the police by calling 101.”

The advice is clear, if you get an email that suggests hackers have videos of you it's certain to be a scam and no such footage exists. They are purely trying to scare you into handing over money.

Action Fraud says that, as with other phishing emails, do not engage with the phisher, forward the email to [email protected]

If you are concerned that your email accounts have been targeted, you can use this service to check which of your online accounts were affected: Have I Been Pwned:

If the phishing email includes a password you still use, then change it immediately.