People are being warned to ignore threatening e-mails circulating in Bermuda.

Police said the offender uses different e-mail addresses from Microsoft Outlook accounts that claim to know the recipient’s passwords and social-media information.

They threaten to reveal details about the recipient’s online activity unless they purchase $2,000 of bitcoin and forward it to the person who sent the e-mail.

The recipient is warned to do so within 24 hours of getting the e-mail.

Police recommend the following steps:

• Delete the e-mail. Do not respond or click on any of the attachments or links, if any

• Do not provide any sensitive information

• Install antivirus software or other security protection if you currently do not have it installed on your computer

• Change your computer, e-mail and other social-media passwords using a strong password combination consisting of capital and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols.

• For more advice on phishing prevention from the Bermuda Police Service, click on the PDF link under “Related Media”