You may have arrived at this post because you received an email with an attached PDF from a purported hacker who is demanding payment or else they will send compromising information—such as pictures sexual in nature—to all your friends and family. You’re searching for what to do in this frightening...
These scams are effective because of a thing called Amygdala hijack which
“is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat.”
You can get any human to do dumb things if you can by-pass their logical brain and have them work off the lizard brain.
The hard thing is to actually get past their lizard brain and contact their logical brain.