FBI warns of ‘large increase’ in sextortion attacks, with $8 million in reported losses in 2021
Hackers and creeps extorted $8 million from Americans over the first seven months of the year by threatening to publish sexual images unless victims paid a fee, according to figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI bulletin published Thursday confirms what many cybercrime researchers may have already feared: Sextortion scams are prevalent, and profitable. More than 16,000 victims reported their issues to the FBI, with nearly half of the complaints coming from people between 20 and 39 years old. The 16,000 complaints almost certainly represent a fraction of the true figure, as victims of sex-related crimes often choose not to report issues to the police for a variety of reasons, including fears of retaliation or a belief that authorities won’t help resolve the issue. The bureau reports that the number of complaints in 2021 marks a “large increase,” though the precise size of the uptick remains unclear. The […]
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