Warnings from the FBI can affect what you share online or post on social media.
Some criminals are now using artificial intelligence to turn harmless photos into explicit content, the agency said. Officials say advances in artificial intelligence are improving the quality of fake images.
“Anyone can now access these images and digitally manipulate and edit them to create harmful content from harmless content,” said Lauren Coughlen, executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Division of Exploited Children. can do,” he said.
Victims ranged from children to adults, according to the FBI’s report. Many of them didn’t even know their photos had been copied, manipulated and shared until someone told them, the warning said.
Altered images may also be sent directly to victims for harassment purposes. The FBI has warned that criminals are threatening to share these deepfakes on social media if they don’t pay the ransom.
“Payments don’t stop the threats, they just increase demands for more and more money,” Coughlan said.
The FBI warns that victims are also targets of sextortion. This type of crime usually occurs when victims are coerced into sharing sexually explicit photos or videos of themselves. In this case, criminals could use these fake photos to trick victims into sending genuine sexually explicit content, officials said.
Experts say it may be difficult to prevent such crimes because many of us are on the internet, so it’s important to be prepared for yourself or your children if such crimes happen. I want you to make a plan.
People can report cases of child sexual exploitation or even images made with harmless images to the cyber information line,” Coughren said. “They can get help and assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to remove the content.”
Coughlan said he is also urging AI developers and lawmakers to act.
“We need more guardrails around this kind of technology before we create a ton of totally indistinguishable images,” she says.
In April, FBI officials began tracking a rise in sextortion cases using fake images and videos.
The FBI recommends the following tips when sharing content and engaging with users online:
- Monitor children’s online activities and discuss risks associated with sharing personal content
- Please be careful when posting images, videos or personal content online, especially content that contains children or their information.
- Images, videos, or personal information posted online can be captured, manipulated, and distributed by malicious actors without your knowledge or consent.
- Once content is shared on the Internet, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to remove once it has been circulated or posted by other parties.
- Perform frequent online searches of your and your child’s information (full name, address, phone number, etc.) to identify the exposure and spread of personal information on the Internet.
- Apply privacy settings (such as private settings for your profile and friends list) to your social media accounts to limit the visibility of your photos, videos, and other private information.
- Consider using a reverse image search engine to find photos and videos that have unknowingly circulated around the internet.
- Be careful when accepting friend requests, communicating, video chatting, or sending pictures to people you don’t personally know. Be especially wary of anyone who demands or pressures you to provide information immediately. These items can be screen captured, recorded, manipulated, shared without your knowledge or consent and used to exploit you or your acquaintances.
- Do not give money or other valuables to strangers or strangers. There is no guarantee that sensitive photos or content will not be shared even if you follow a malicious actor.
- Be cautious when interacting online with known individuals whose behavior you believe deviates from your normal patterns of behavior. Hacked social media accounts can be easily manipulated by malicious actors to gain the trust of friends and contacts and spark further criminal schemes and activities.
- Secure your social media and other online accounts with complex passwords or passphrases and multi-factor authentication.
- Research the privacy, data sharing, and data retention policies of social media platforms, apps, and websites before uploading and sharing images, videos, or other personal content.
