‘Porn watchers’ are at risk of being scammed with THIS latest online fraud!

Online scammers are also increasing at a rapid pace as the internet grows larger and larger. Bad actors online are once more luring in people who consume pornography on their computers with an old scamming method. Recent reports have revealed that people on porn sites are experiencing pop-ups warning them that their ‘browser has been locked,’ when watching porn videos. A security researcher has shared a screenshot of a suspicious URL which results in a full-page pop-up on a Google Chrome browser.

The pop-up indicates that users’ browsers have been locked as a result of watching porn according to a report by internet security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia on Twitter. To unblock the browser, users are asked to pay money. In the pop-up, which appears to be from the Ministry of Law and Justice, it states that the user’s computer ‘has been blocked’ under decree number 173-279. It also warns that the browser has been blocked due to ‘viewing and disseminating material that is illegal under Indian law’.

Users are asked to pay Rs 29,000 as a penalty to unlock their computers through the pop-up. According to the scam, if the user fails to pay the penalty, the case materials for the said computer will be transferred to the ministry for criminal proceedings. The user has six hours to pay the fine. It also contains a ‘Payment Details’ section where users can make the payment using a Visa or MasterCard credit card. Once the payment is made, the browser will be unlocked.

Scammers use the name of the Ministry of Law and Justice in order to deceive people. Despite the ban on porn in India, the government does not track people’s computers to find those who work around the ban. This is a very old scamming technique used within India as well. The same scam was discovered in July of last year when scammers demanded 3,000 rupees for a similar warning.

In order to avoid such a scam, avoid watching porn. On the other hand, if such a pop-up appears on your computer, the best thing to do is to close the browser window. You can use the Task Manager (ctrl+alt+delete) to end your browser’s task if that doesn’t work and the pop-up has taken over your browser (an unlikely scenario). Further, a force shutdown might help your case, if the previous two steps don’t work.