"You should be ashamed of yourself" email?

Hey everyone, I'm posting here on behalf of a friend who got a sketchy email and is too nervous to make any moves on their own without professional input.

The email address is from a Brazillian email. The most alarming thing is that the email subject line uses his full name (think John W. Doe), which is not what he has set as his name in his email (just his last name, Doe), and the rest of the subject line reads "Unpleasant incident, ID j5qcgc." Because it's gmail, my friend can see the first line of the email which reads "Hey John W. Doe while you were wiling away the time in front of the screen browsing porno sites and beating off your notebook caught a hostile program through your browser"

A few things to add from my friend: "It should be noted I did visit a sketchy site about a week ago and have visited other streaming sites."

So my friend has a few questions:

"1. Should I open the email, to find out if it's real or to get more details?

2. Should I run a virus scan before opening the email? I use Avast as my anti-virus. It is the paid version.

3.  I also keep a piece of tape over my web cam, so I can't have been video recorded. But should I be concerned about any audio recordings or programs that may be recording my keystrokes?"

If necessary we can provide some machine specifications. Thank you guys a ton in advance!

Welcome to BC....

Tell your friend it is an attempt to black mail him. Several ways the black mailer could of gotten his full name and email address.

It is a well known scam and he should simply ignore the email. Block the sender if possible from sending more emails.

As with all spam email....don't open as often the sender will be notified that it was opened and will continue sending more spam.

Would be a good idea for you and your friend to use the programs below if you haven't used them recently...to clean, remove adware

and remove malware.

Use CCleaner to remove Temporary files, program caches, cookies, logs, etc. Use the Default settings. No need to use the

Registry Cleaning Tool...risky. Pay close attention while installing and UNcheck offers of Google Chrome and Avast.

After install, open CCleaner and run by clicking on the Run Cleaner button in the bottom right corner.

CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

Malwarebytes - Clean Mode

• Download and install the free version of Malwarebytes
  Note: If you have Malwarebytes already installed, you don't need to install it again. Simply start from the next bullet point
• Once Malwarebytes is installed, launch it and let it update its database. You might have to click on the little arrow by Scan Status in the middle right pane for it to do so
• Once the database update is complete, click on the Scan tab, then select the Threat Scan button and click on Start Scan
• Let the scan run, the time required to complete the scan depends of your system and computer specs
• Once the scan is complete, make sure that the first checkbox at the top is checked (which will automatically check every detected item), then click on the Quarantine Selected button
  • If it asks you to restart your computer to complete the removal, do so
• Click on Export Summary after the deletion (in the bottom-left corner) and select Copy to Clipboard. Paste the content in your next reply

Download AdwCleaner by Xplode onto your desktop. (compatible with Windows 7, 8 and 10)

• Close all open programs and internet browsers.
• Double click on adwcleaner.exe to run the tool.
• Click on Scan button.
• When the scan has finished click on Clean button.
• Your computer will be rebooted automatically. A text file will open after the restart.
• Please post the contents of that logfile with your next reply.
• You can find the logfile at C:\AdwCleaner[S1].txt as well.

Download and run the FREE online scanner from Free Virus Scan | Online Virus Scan from ESET | ESET

• Download esetsmartinstaller_enu.exe and save it to your Desktop
• Double click the icon
• Check YES, I accept the Terms of Use
• Click the Start button
• Accept any security warnings from your browser
• Click Advanced settings
• Check the following items

Enable detection of potentially unwanted applications
Remove found threats
Scan archives
Scan for potentially unsafe applications
Enable Anti-Stealth technology

• Click Start
• ESET will then download updates and begin scanning your computer
• If no threats are found simply click Uninstall application on close and hit Finish
• If threats are found click List of found threats
• Click Export to text file
• Save the file on your Desktop as ESET.txt
• Click Back
• Review the list of entries and if there are any you want to keep stop and copy/paste the ESET.txt report in your reply for my review
• If you do not wish to keep any of the entries check Uninstall application on close and Delete quarantined files
• Click Finish
• Close the ESET Online Scanner window
• Copy and paste the contents of ESET.txt in your reply

Hello, and thank you for the welcome! My friend did an Avast scan, which showed nothing out of the ordinary, so we suspect it is just a spammy blackmail attempt. Thank you for all the helpful links and information, it is all very thorough and above and beyond what we expected, and we really appreciate them. My friend will be taking all the advice, and we will report back to you guys if there are any issues.

You're welcome....this topic will stay open.