Even if you aren’t hacked, your nude videos and photos could end up on the internet as the FBI warns that cybercriminals have begun using artificial intelligence to create Deepfake for their sexual extortion schemes.
As I mentioned ComputerThe FBI has released a dossier New alert In the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) which warns of the dangers posed by the new sextortion scheme for adults and even children.
For those unfamiliar, sextortion is kind of Online extortion Where cybercriminals threaten victims, saying that they will release their explicit videos and photos if a ransom is not paid. While celebrities are often the targets of sextortion attacks due to the fact that they are more likely to pay more, ordinary people can also fall victim to it.
These sensitive videos and photos are usually obtained through hacking or coercion, but in this case, even if you don’t take any nude photos, you may end up being a victim of sextortion.
Fake videos and photos are a very real threat
The way the cybercriminals behind this new wave of sextortion attacks are creating fully nude images in the first place is through Scrape publicly available content of their goals. This content often comes from videos and photos posted on popular social media platforms.
From here, they use artificial intelligence tools like image generators To turn these innocent videos and photos into sexually explicit content that is then used in sextortion attacks. As the FBI points out in its alert, the cybercriminals responsible for these attacks also target minors in addition to adults.
While the candid videos and photos produced by these AI deepfake tools Not real in reality, they appear real enough to trick victims into paying a ransom to prevent their release. Especially given the personal and reputational damage it would cause to send them to the victim’s family or co-workers.
It should also be noted that not everyone targeted in these sextortion schemes has the opportunity to pay a ransom to prevent these explicit videos and photos from being posted online. Sometimes, they post them on adult sites without contacting the victim first in order to attract a larger audience to their presence. At the same time, some cybercriminals upload them publicly to put additional pressure on victims to pay the price.
How to stay safe from sextortion schemes
Besides using a file The best antivirus software On your computer, the The best antivirus for Mac on your Mac and one of the Best antivirus apps for Android on your smartphone to protect them from being hacked, there are a few steps you can take to stay safe from falling victim to a sextortion scheme.
For example, the FBI urges users to use caution when posting or sending direct messages containing personal photos, videos, and any other identifying information on social media, dating apps, or other sites on the Internet. Even though a video or image may be completely innocent, they can provide cyber criminals with content to exploit in their attacks.
Likewise, you want to make sure that all privacy settings for your social media accounts are turned on so that you can limit who can access your content. In addition to cybercriminals and hackers, this can prevent your data from getting into the wrong hands Data brokers.
Meanwhile, you should also consider using a The best password managers To store all your passwords and other login information securely so that they do not fall into the hands of cyber criminals who can then take over your online accounts.
Now that deepfakes are becoming more real, expect blackmail schemes and other similar attacks to happen more frequently as cybercriminals figure out how to exploit all of these new AI-powered tools.
More Tom’s guide
[ad_2]
