FBI warns that sextortionists are creating specific deepfakes from individuals’s social media pictures
In short: In one more story concerning the darkish facet of AI, the FBI has warned that criminals are blackmailing individuals by threatening to ship specific pictures and movies that includes the victims to their family and friends. The one distinction from common sextortion assaults is that the fabric is AI-generated deepfakes created from stolen social media pictures.
The same old sextortion assault entails a malicious actor threatening to leak specific pictures/movies of a goal, generally to family and friends, except they obtain a sum of cash. Criminals may need obtained the fabric by hacking a sufferer, and there are occasions when the particular person making the risk does not even have something; they’re simply hoping to scare somebody into paying, generally by claiming to have taken over a webcam.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has simply posted an alert a couple of totally different kind of sextortion. It entails malicious actors utilizing harmless pictures and movies of a goal, taken from social media, public boards, or by request, and manipulating them utilizing AI to make the tip end result sexually specific. Deepfakes, in different phrases.
Technological developments imply that deepfakes can now seem extra convincing than ever. On this case, the altered pictures are circulated on social media, public boards, or pornographic web sites. The deepfakes are then despatched to the sufferer for sextortion or harassment.
Many victims, which have included minors, are sometimes unaware that their pictures are getting used this fashion till another person brings it to their consideration. It is often inconceivable to cease the deepfakes from being shared as soon as they’re on-line.
The FBI writes that it has noticed an uptick in sextortion victims reporting using faux pictures or movies created from content material posted to social media, requested by the malicious actor, or captured throughout video chats. Criminals sometimes demand both fee within the type of cash or present playing cards, or they inform the sufferer to ship actual sexually-themed pictures or movies.
The FBI recommends monitoring kids’s on-line exercise and discussing the dangers related to sharing private content material. It additionally suggests ensuring social media accounts are set to personal, not public, and utilizing a powerful password and 2-factor authentication. Furthermore, present warning when interacting on-line with new individuals or these you understand who could also be appearing out of character – they could have been hacked.
This type of sextortion is not a completely new follow. In 2020, a deepfake bot that was made freely accessible on messaging platform Telegram revamped 100,000 faked nude pictures of ladies primarily based on social media pictures, which had been then shared on-line
Deepfakes have gotten extra convincing and simpler to create; China’s Tencent affords a $145 service that makes them for you.
h/t: BleepingComputer
