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Cyber criminals turn to 'sextortion' blackmail

Cape Town - Cyber criminals have resorted to a new technique to exploit people for money, according a security company.

In a research paper, Trend Micro demonstrated that cyber criminals have resorted to 'sextortion' to make money out of victims.

Sextortion is blackmail via having cybercrime victims pay money to prevent sexually explicit images and video from being made public.

Like internet scams that rely on social engineering, the sextortion racket also exploits gullible victims.

"Members of a sextortion crime ring in the Philippines created fake Facebook accounts, which presented them as attractive women to lure men into chatting with them. They then asked them to video-chat on Skype so they could engage in cyber sex, which would allow the cyber criminals to record the victims," Trend Micro said.

Taboo subject

These videos were then used to blackmail victims into paying up to $1 000 to keep the videos private. If the victims refused to pay, the content would be uploaded to YouTube or sent to their friends and family.

Beyond PC applications of the crime, crooks have also exploited mobile devices, regarded as more personal than computers.

"Based on the analyses of Trend Micro researchers the disguised malware or data stealers used by these cyber criminals are persistent and exhibit various intrusive behaviours including retrieving and sending a victim’s entire contact list and account IDs, sending, deleting and intercepting messages, making, intercepting and termination calls, recording audio and getting the detailed location of the device," the company said.

While the crime may not have much of an impact in liberal western societies, it is hugely damaging in conservative countries where sex remains a taboo subject.

Politicians in the UK and US are racing to enforce laws against so-called "revenge porn" where people post sexually explicit pictures - often of former partners - once relationships have soured.

In the US, Kevin Bollaert was jailed for 18 years for running a website that allowed people to post revenge porn pictures and video. He then charged the victims between $300 and $350 to remove the content.

In the UK, Luke King was prosecuted for posting nude pictures of his girlfriend on WhatsApp, but received only a 12 week jail sentence.

Dedicated effort

A number of US states now make revenge porn illegal, but in other countries the shame of exposing sexual behaviour can haunt victims.

"Sextortion is a widespread, global issue, but it is taboo, and victims will most likely never admit to having been caught on tape in the first place," said Gregory Anderson, country manager at Trend Micro South Africa.

He added that the victims were not randomly chosen, but rather part of a dedicated effort to ensure that they would pay up.

"These cyber criminals were specifically targeting those who they knew would be most vulnerable because of their culture."

Have you been a victim of 'sextortion'? Tell us by clicking here.

Watch this online video on how sextortion works:

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