The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned that malicious actors are increasingly creating deepfake content to carry out sextortion attacks.
Sextortion is a form of online extortion in which a malicious actor publicly leaks explicit images or videos that have been stolen (by hacking) or obtained (by coercion) to blackmail the target, usually extorting the material. demand payment of money for withholding
In many cases of sextortion, the compromised content is not real and the attackers simply pretend to have access in order to blackmail the victim into paying their extortion demands.
The FBI has warned that sextortionists are now scraping public images of their targets, including innocuous photos and videos posted on social media platforms. These images are fed into deepfake content creation tools and transformed into AI-generated sexually explicit content.
Because the images and videos created are not real, but look so real that sending that material to the target’s family, co-workers, etc. could cause significant personal and reputational damage to the victim. , which can serve threat actors’ extortion purposes.
“As of April 2023, the FBI will not allow fake images or videos made from content posted on social media sites or web posts, provided to malicious actors upon request, or video chats. We have observed an increasing number of sextortion victims reporting the use of fake images and videos captured during ‘sextortion,’ reads a warning published on the FBI’s IC3 portal.
“According to recent victim reports, malicious attackers typically made demands such as: 1. Threatening to share images and videos with family and social media friends if funds were not received; 2. Send the victim genuine sexually themed images or videos while requesting payment (money, gift cards, etc.).
According to the FBI, creators of explicit content may omit the extortion part and post their videos verbatim to pornographic websites, resulting in a large number of abuses without the victim’s knowledge or consent. be exposed to the audience.
In some cases, sextortionists use these public uploads to increase pressure on victims, demanding payment to remove the posted images and videos from their sites.
The FBI reports that this media manipulation campaign unfortunately affects minors as well.
how to protect yourself
The speed at which powerful AI-powered content creation tools are becoming available to a wide audience is creating a hostile environment for all Internet users, especially those belonging to sensitive categories.
There are several content creation tool projects freely available via GitHub that can create realistic videos from a single image of a target’s face without the need for additional training or datasets.
Many of these tools have built-in protections to prevent abuse, but those sold on underground forums and dark web markets do not.
Source: Kaspersky
The FBI recommends that parents monitor their children’s online activities and discuss with them the risks associated with sharing personal media online.
Additionally, we encourage parents to conduct online searches to determine the extent to which their children are exposed online and take steps to remove content where appropriate.
Adults who post images and videos online should limit viewing access to a small, private circle of friends to reduce exposure. At the same time, the child’s face should always be blurred or masked.
Finally, if you come across deepfake content depicting yourself on a porn site, please report it to the authorities and contact the hosting platform to request removal of the offending media.
The UK recently introduced legislation in the form of an amendment to the Online Safety Bill to classify sharing of deepfakes without consent as a crime.
