I was sextorted in 2020, and I have been a software engineer for 25 years now, currently working in firmware development for medical devices. I purposely avoided acquiring extensive knowledge of security both to avoid being watchlisted, and to avoid hanging around the communities that perform these exploits, because that crowd can be quite dangerous.
After extensive post mortem analysis, I was floored by the extent of the hacking. There was evidence of multiple breakins when I was out of town, physical tampering of devices (every single router I owned had been opened and compromised, warranty seals were broken), cell phones compromised, hue lights compromised, my PC and laptop were hacked, and overall I basically had to rebuild everything from the ground up.
80 accounts had been compromised, bank accounts had Nigerian numbers added as the main number. Also, hack rf or some device like that, had been used to access my car and trunk, along with screwing with my hue lights.
Worse, I learned that this had been ongoing for years, and then quite a few more things became clear. Information leaks now had an explanation. But, the worst thing they did, was so subtle it was one of the last things I figured out.
It seemed that my entire social circle took a hike the past decade. I would send email, phone calls, texts, and was ignored, decades long friendships, gone. Admittedly I was a little bit depressed after my divorce for a couple of years, but still, not a single person?
And, that's when I found evidence of call blocking, email blocking, etc. In other words, chances are, many likely never received anything. But, in other cases, they may have simply reworded what was sent (I found evidence of that), so its not a given that I can just call.
It explains why I have been so isolated, and I can say it is the worst experience imaginable. It's so much worse than overt attacks, because what your brain does, psychologically, is it both turns up the sensitivity to threats, meaning that everything is threatening, and you tend to misperceive it as an attack, when really, everything is radio silent.
It is such a strange experience, and since it's such a peadoxical reaction, it can make you look crazy. Worse, the anxiety, can cause you to voluntarily self isolate even more.
It absolutely sucks, because my story is both not completely known by me, and also, it is almost impossible to fix the damage done to my social life because of how convoluted and inane the tactics used by the hackers, were. In other words, I can't just easily explain it and put it behind me, still don't know the names of all parties involved, and no, the police didn't do anything.
P.S. They did not receive a dime, and I really think the sextortion was a distraction, as several pieces of important information on a hard drive I owned, were gone. That's the other thing, they almost always lie about their motives, nothing is to be taken at face value, at least that's what I experienced.
Username: hestotallyweird