Beware of the personal images that you publish on the Internet! Cybercriminals can hijack them by making sexual deepfakes to blackmail you into demanding a ransom for their dissemination.
Do you share many photos and videos of yourself on social networks? Beware! Because these perfectly innocent personal images can turn into a real trap by making you a victim of sextortion. Imagine: one day, you receive an email telling you that someone has photos or videos of a sexual nature where you appear – in action, of course… – threatening to distribute them on the Internet if you do not quickly pay them a certain amount of money! Worse, he can even show you an example where you are perfectly recognized in an intimate scene! A blackmail called sextortion, contraction of sex and extortion. Don’t worry, most of the time it’s a trick-based bluff. Because, thanks to AI tools, cybercriminals can now create sexual content representing you from completely innocuous images that you have published on the Web. And even if these photos or videos are fake, they are perfectly credible!
As reported The Bleeping Computer, the FBI warns of a sharp increase since April 2023 in sextortion using deepfakes – images that use artificial intelligence to superimpose a face on another face, and therefore reproduce “fake” people. And even if they are montages, they are capable of destroying lives. Imagine the terrible effect if they were sent to your family, your colleagues, your friends or simply if they were made freely available on the Internet, in view of millions of Internet users!
Sextortion: sexual blackmail with a touch of AI
Typically, victims of sextortion receive an email in which cybercriminals claim to have hacking into the computer and taking intimate photos of them while watching a pornographic film. They can also claim to have found compromising photos. Scammers threaten to distribute this content unless victims send them money or other sexually-orientated photos. Of course, they try to put them under pressure by asking them to act quickly. Hackers even go so far as to introduce genuine passwords into the message to boost their credibility. Most of the time, however, these are bluff attempts, and it is important not to respond to messages.
The problem is that with advances in technology, deepfakes make it possible to make anyone say or do anything, and they are often used for sexual purposes. According to a study by cybersecurity firm DeepTrace, 96% of deepfakes on the Internet are pornographic content. To make matters worse, applications allowing this kind of editing do not hesitate to advertise on social networks, making sextortion accessible to everyone, including those who do not necessarily have the skills. to make a convincing deepfake (see our article). Even worse: the FBI has noticed that some cybercriminals do not even bother to ask for a ransom and publish the content directly on the Internet.
Sexual deepfake: minors particularly affected
The number of victims of sextortion is on the rise and particularly affects minors. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), an American non-profit organization, alerts in a published report early May on the blackmailing of sexual photos and videos sent to teenagers. Having access to the Internet, and more particularly to social networks, increasingly young, they are particularly vulnerable. NCMEC reveals an 82% increase in reports of attempts to seduce children online with the aim of blackmailing them.
Sextortion plays on the fear and shame of being exposed on the Internet and having one’s life destroyed. To make matters worse, deepfakes are still too little recognized on the legal side. In France, they are currently not specified in any law and therefore benefit from a gray area of legislation. Also, to limit the risks, avoid sharing photos of a sexual nature on the Internet, especially with strangers. It is also better to restrict access to social networks – by only allowing friends to access published content, for example. As for parents, they must monitor their children’s online activity – by enforcing age restrictions on social networks in particular – and educate them as well as possible about the risks that the Web entails (see our article). Finally, section 226-4-1 of the criminal code allows you to file a complaint when you are the victim of these deepfakes, because “the fact of usurping the identity of a third party or of making use of one or more data of any kind enabling him to be identified with a view to disturbing his peace or that of others, or undermining his honor or at his consideration, is punished by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000.”