Spammers are emailing businesses, schools, and other locations in the US, Canada, and New Zealand, demanding bitcoin as ransom to not detonate a supposed bomb
and a ‘Terrible Strategy’ Francisco Memoria / CryptoGlobe : US Government Advises Bitcoin Bomb Threat Victims to Ignore Ransom, Inform the FBI Usman Qureshi / iPhone in Canada Blog : Bitcoin Scammers Send Bomb Threats to Businesses, Schools in Canada Daniella Silva / NBC News : Wave of bomb threats causes evacuations, anxiety across U.S. and Canada Recode : Recode Daily: Facebook wants you to buy — and watch — HBO on Facebook Ben Munster / Decrypt Media : Bitcoin bomb threats sent to businesses across the world Mohit Kumar / The Hacker News : Fake Bomb Threat Emails Demanding Bitcoins Sparked Chaos Across US, Canada Yogita Khatri / CoinDesk : US Government Issues Advice Over Bitcoin Bomb Threat Emails Marc Handelman / Security Boulevard : Don't Panic It's A Hoax Mark Emem / CCN : Pay up or Else: Bitcoin Bomb Threat Emails Show up in New Zealand and Australia Nat Levy / GeekWire : ‘Spam’ bomb threats at schools and businesses nationwide demand Bitcoin ransom payments Tom Cleary / Heavy.com : Bitcoin Bomb Threat Emails Spark Evacuations Nationwide Rob Thubron / TechSpot : Hoax bomb threat emails demanding Bitcoin cause nationwide evacuations Ellen Tannam / Silicon Republic : Bomb threat scam emails cause panic across US and Canada Tara Seals / Threatpost : Bomb Threat Bitcoin Demands Cause Disruption, Evacuations William Suberg / Cointelegraph.com News : US Government Tells Bitcoin Bomb Scam Victims to Inform FBI, Not Pay Ransom Money Stephanie Mlot / Geek.com : Bitcoin Bomb Threat Scam Disrupts Businesses Across US, Canada Reuters : Australia, NZ investigating bomb threat emails - cyber security agencies Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE : Spam emails threaten to explode bomb unless bitcoin is paid Elizabeth Weise / USA Today : Hoax bomb threat cyber extortion emails similar to sex video threats CBS New York : NYPD, FBI Probing Spate Of Bomb Threats Across NYC; Similar Threats Reported Across Country Nick Bastone / Business Insider : Bitcoin scammers are sending bomb threat emails to millions around the world, but authorities … Dan Goodin / Ars Technica : Mass email hoax causes closures across the US and Canada Kevin O'Brien / CryptoGlobe : Breaking Story: Bitcoin Scammers Email Bomb Threats, Causing Evacuations Across The U.S. Thomas Claburn / The Register : US bitcoin bomb threat ransom scam looks like a hoax say FBI, cops Nick Bastone / CoinBlock.Asia : Bitcoin scammers are sending bomb threat emails to millions around the world, but authorities … Mark / NullTX : Bitcoin Bomb Threats Across The US Cause Evacuations Emily Dreyfuss / Wired : Nationwide Bomb Threats Look Like a New Spin on an Old Bitcoin Scam Eric Lam / Bloomberg : Bitcoin's Year of Toil Deepens as December Losses Mount Tweets: Ryanocerous Grant / @theeryangrant : So I actually just got a bomb threat in my work email today ordering me to send the person $20,000 via bitcoin or they will blow up my place of work.... 2018 is wild pic.twitter.com/sn0vVLwe6v @nypdnews : At this time, it appears that these threats are meant to cause disruption and/or obtain money. We'll respond to each call regarding these emails to conduct a search but we wanted to share this information so the credibility of these threats can be assessed as likely NOT CREDIBLE. Cert Nz / @certnz : ADVISORY: New Zealanders have reported receiving threatening emails that claim an explosive device is hidden in the recipient's office https://www.cert.govt.nz/... @briankrebs : A new bomb threat hoax being mass-spammed right now threatens to blow up recipient's building unless bitcoin demands are paid by end of business day http://krebsonsecurity.com/... This has been fairly disruptive to several banks & other businesses today, source said. Emily Dreyfuss / @emilydreyfuss : Bitcoin bomb hoax is such a 2018 way to go into the holidays http://www.wired.com/... Wsb-Tv / @wsbtv : BREAKING: Channel 2's @RElliotWSB received this statement from the @FBI's National Press Office regarding the bomb threats being made in the metro and across the country. WHAT WE KNOW: https://2wsb.tv/2QSou0y pic.twitter.com/VF3uZxoFOr Jason Schreier / @jasonschreier : Breaking news: LA-based Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward was evacuated today after a bomb threat, part of what appears to be a wave of Bitcoin ransom demands: http://kotaku.com/... @briankrebs : Willing to bet that when the dust has settled from this latest spammed bomb threat hoax we're going to see the biggest impact was the economic hit from businesses and schools closing early today in an abundance of caution http://krebsonsecurity.com/... Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : Got some new details about the Bitcoin bomb threats causing widespread evacuations from a guy who received 40 of them: —They're likely coming from phished accounts, since the domains are places like law firms, construction co's. —They look like this: http://www.nbcnews.com/... http://twitter.com/... Burlington Police / @onenorthavenue : Please be advised that several institutions in our area have received this hoax email today, including us. At this time there is no reason to believe there are actual devices anywhere. http://www.theverge.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This wave is the latest step in a decade-long shift in how bitcoin gets used for extortion. Cyber-extortionists were already demanding bitcoin ransoms from the financial sector back in 2015, but those were targeted demands; by mid-2017 attackers had industrialized the model with ransomware outbreaks spreading across 64 countries through compromised software supply chains.
What changed with these bomb-threat emails is that the attack requires no code at all: spammers are spraying thousands of identical threats at businesses and schools in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, betting that fear plus bitcoin's irreversibility extracts payment from even a tiny fraction of recipients. The FBI's assessment that the emails are likely hoaxes, and its advice to ignore the ransom and report instead, is the counter-move.
First-order effects
- Businesses and schools across the US and Canada face immediate evacuations and operational disruption from emails the FBI assesses as non-credible hoaxes.
- Victims now have explicit official guidance — ignore the demand, inform the FBI — rather than deciding alone whether to pay an anonymous bitcoin demand.
Second-order effects
- Australian cyber security agencies and CERT NZ joining the investigation forces cross-border coordination around a campaign whose only infrastructure is a mail server and a bitcoin wallet.
- If victims follow the FBI's advice en masse, the scam's economics collapse — payment rates, not delivery scale, are the binding constraint on spray-and-pray extortion.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward extortion splitting into two tiers: resource-heavy operations like the 2017 ransomware outbreaks that hit WPP, Maersk, and Merck and later selective groups such as BlackMatter targeting $100M+ revenue companies, versus near-zero-cost psychological spam like this hoax that needs no malware or breach at all.
- As pure-hoax campaigns proliferate, institutions may need standing protocols for verifying physical-threat emails — treating them as a routine email-security problem rather than an emergency each time.
The trend: Cyber-extortion is bifurcating between high-cost technical attacks and zero-infrastructure psychological spam, both monetized through bitcoin's irreversible payments.