JAKARTA - Lonely men in the middle of a lockdown are being preyed upon by teenagers disguising themselves as sexy women online. This new crime is known as eWhoring.
Potential victims were courted with fake profiles on social media, and then sold pornographic material - mostly photos and videos - copied from third-party sites.
Dr Ben Collier, from the University of Edinburgh, told the Daily Record: “The pandemic has caused huge changes in the way we live our lives and cybercriminals have too.
"Lockdown has provided a fertile environment for those who engage in online scams, such as romance and eWhoring scams, where individuals use images and videos from social media, purchased from artists, or caught using malware, to trick victims into faking sexual interactions."
This, Dr Ben continued, is due to the increased dominance and vulnerability of potential targets who are lonely and spend more time online.
“We found from primary data sets from forums, chat channels and markets used by the cybercrime community, indications that the social and government policy changes that have resulted from Covid-19 appear to have stimulated many of the low-level cyber crime economies.
"From the discussions we have observed, it appears that this is due to many users - including teenagers and young adults - who are currently confined to their homes without going to school or working most of the day."
He said criminals stuck at home with more free time would be tempted to engage in online scams: "In addition, anxiety over job loss and business closures may for some people drive them to scale up existing cybercrime activity as a means of income. generation."
One survey found such 'romance scams' had tripled between 2015 and 2019, while cybersecurity firm Trend Micro found 26,622 posts on eWhoring between August 2018 and June 2019, and 46,651 the following year.
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