A transnational sextortion ring was uncovered and dismantled following a joint investigation between Interpol's cybercrime division and police in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Interpol says that 12 suspects believed to be core members of this criminal organization were arrested in July and August after investigators found that they asked potential victims via online sex and dating platforms to download a malicious mobile app to engage in "naked chats."
However, their targets didn't know this app was designed to steal the contents of their phones' contact lists which the cybercriminals would use to blackmail the victims, threatening to share their nude videos with relatives and friends in their address books.
"We conducted a proactive investigation and in-depth analysis of a zombie command and control server hosting the malicious application, which – along with the joint efforts by our counterparts – allowed us to identify and locate individuals linked to the criminal syndicate," said Raymond Lam Cheuk Ho, the head of Hong Kong Police's Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau.
Sextortion is a type of digital extortion where the criminals coerce or trick their targets into sharing explicit videos or images that will later be used for blackmail.
To make things even scarier for their targets, they'll also often gain access to their social media or contact info, threatening to send the sexual imagery they got their hands on to the victims' families and friends.
Scammers behind sextortion campaigns are also known to
distribute various strains of malware via phishing emails, ranging from data-stealing trojans to ransomware.
