Sextortionists are using social media images to create artificial nudes.

In order to carry out sextortion attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning of a growing trend of malicious actors creating deepfake content.

Sextortion is a form of online blackmail in which nefarious individuals threaten their victims by publicly leaking explicit images and videos that they have obtained through coercion or hacking, typically in exchange for financial compensation.

The threat actors only pretend to have access in many instances of sextortion in order to frighten victims into paying an extortion demand.

The FBI warns that sextortionists are now scraping innocent images and videos posted on social media platforms of their targets. After that, these images are fed into deepfake content creation tools, which transform them into sexually explicit content that is generated by AI.

Even though the produced images or videos are not real, they appear very real, allowing the threat actor to use them for extortion by sending them to the target’s family, coworkers, etc. could still cause victims significant harm to their personal and public image.

The alert that was made available on the IC3 portal of the FBI states, “As of April 2023, the FBI has observed an uptick in sextortion victims reporting the use of fake images or videos created from content posted on their social media sites or web postings, provided to the malicious actor upon request, or captured during video chats.”

“In light of ongoing casualty announcing, the pernicious entertainers regularly requested: 1. Threats to share the images or videos with family members or friends on social media if funds were not received in the form of payment (such as cash or gift cards); or 2. The victim sends real videos or images with a sexual theme.”

According to the FBI, explicit content creators sometimes post their videos directly to pornographic websites without first extorting the victims, exposing them to a large audience without their consent.

Sextortionists sometimes make use of these now-public uploads to exert even more pressure on the victim by requesting payment to remove the uploaded photos and videos from the websites.

Unfortunately, the FBI reports that this media manipulation activity has also affected minors.

How to stay safe All internet users, especially those in sensitive categories, face a hostile environment as capable AI-enabled content creation tools become more widely available.
On GitHub, there are a number of free content creation tool projects that can create realistic videos from a single image of the target’s face without the need for additional training or data.

Many of these tools have safeguards built in to prevent misuse, but those sold on dark web markets and underground forums do not.
Parents should keep an eye on their children’s online activities and talk to them about the dangers of sharing personal media online, according to the FBI.

Additionally, parents should conduct online searches to ascertain their children’s online exposure and take any necessary action to remove content.

To reduce exposure, adults who post images or videos online should restrict access to a small private group of friends. In addition, children’s faces ought to always be masked or blurred.

Last but not least, if you find deepfake content about you on pornographic websites, report it to the authorities and get in touch with the hosting platform to ask for the media to be taken down.

The non-consensual sharing of deepfakes has recently been made a crime in the United Kingdom thanks to an amendment to the Online Safety Bill.