Commentary

Social Media Leads 'Sextortion' Channels

“Sextortion” is another unfortunate neologism of the Internet age, referring to a practice in which a criminal hacks another person’s private pictures or video and then uses this with the threat of exposure to extort more compromising content, or some variant of this approach (possibly also including blackmail for money). Unsurprisingly social media is by far the most popular channel for sextortion, according to a new report from the Brookings Institute, titled “Sextortion: Cybersecurity, teenagers, and remote sexual assault.”

Brookings analyzed 78 documented cases of sextortion that resulted in prosecution, most in the U.S., and found that 91% of these cases involving a minor also involved “social media manipulation,” covering a range of techniques including threatening messages, online surveillance, impersonation, and hacking the social media accounts of both victims and their online contacts.

The most popular type of social media manipulation by far was “catfishing,” employed in 83% of cases of sextortion, in which the malefactor creates an attractive online persona and cultivates a fake romantic connection via social media, then extracts compromising images and video under false pretenses. This can then be used to demand more images and video. In 41% of cases the criminal used multiple online channels to contact the victim.

Criminals engaged in sextortion are often prolific: although the total number of malefactors studied by Brookings numbered less than 100, together they managed to victimize at least 1,397 people, and perhaps as many as 6,500 (many victims are understandably reluctant to take action). Overall 19% of cases involved hacking, including 43% of cases with an adult victim but just 9% of cases with minor victims.

Indeed, the techniques used by more sophisticated cyber-extortionists are impressive and frightening. One especially disturbing case involved an individual living in California, Luis Mijangos, who uses his knowledge of computer languages to hack computers, social media accounts, and media devices to spy on and control his victims.

In 2009 Mijangos created malware and tricked women and teenage girls into downloading it on their computers, not only giving him access to all their files, photos and videos, but also allowing him to see everything they typed on their keyboards and even activate their Web cams and microphones to watch and record the victims without their knowledge. Mijangos used this access to keep logs of damaging or embarrassing actions for further blackmail and extortion, and also spied on victims’ communications to see if they were contacting law enforcement, friends, or family about the sextortion. Mijangos also hacked the social media accounts and impersonated victims’ boyfriends to get nude photos.

Altogether Mijangos had amassed a cache of 15,000 Webcam-video captures, 900 audio recordings, and 13,000 screen captures, for around 230 people, including 44 minors.

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