Hackers generate deepfake content for sextortion campaigns

A newly published report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned everyone regarding a rising threat of malicious attacks that caused deepfake content to execute sextortion attacks on unfortunate targets.

Sextortion is an illegal activity that threat actors use to blackmail their targets online by threatening to release their exposed images or explicit videos publicly. These illicit contents usually come from stolen photos from hacking campaigns or acquired through coercion.

Most of the time, sextortion has no basis, and the threat actors hold empty threats but continue by pretending to have access to their targets’ data and push their extortion demands.

 

Threat actors now use AI to edit publicly available and execute their sextortion campaigns.

 

According to this US federal law enforcement agency, these threat actors have scraped publicly available images of their targets, such as daring pictures and videos published on social media platforms, to execute a sextortion attack.

The actors use deepfake content-generating tools on AI-generated software to develop explicit content. The generated images are not authentic but could still fool everyone, which the actors could leverage to extort a target.

Furthermore, the threat actors could increase the stakes by threatening the target of sending the content to closely related individuals, such as family members, colleagues, and friends.

Therefore, most victims will likely comply with the attackers’ demands to prevent the leak of fake images generated by artificial intelligence tools.

Based on reports, the miscreants that operate these attacks usually ask for a few things. The first is usually money or gift cards to stop sharing images or videos on social media. The second request the actors typically ask their target is to send authentic explicit photos or videos.

Unfortunately, the FBI revealed that these threat actors sometimes avoid extortion tactics and directly publish fake photos or videos on adult websites. Therefore, victims do not know these images have been circulated to a large audience. Lastly, these cybercriminal activities have also impacted minors, causing them to suffer depression.