Sextortion – a portmanteau of the words sex and extortion – is a broad term used to describe the practice of exploiting a person (usually in an attempt to get money) by threatening to reveal evidence of their sexual activity, often explicit photos or videos. Sextortion is not a new concept, and we can find evidence of the term being used as early as the 1950s. But the modern definition of sextortion is widely understood to be linked with exploitation through technology – email scams, webcam hacks, stolen photos and videos, etc. It is seen as a growing problem internationally, and it is another weapon that cybercriminals use to target us.
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It’s clear to everyone that we are living in unprecedented times. Almost overnight, many of us have had to reassess how we work, socialize, do our groceries, and just about every other activity. Covid-19, and the social and economic upheaval many of us are feeling, has acted as a beacon to hackers. We can fight them by being vigilant against these threats – now more than ever.
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Cyberattacks. We hear about them everywhere – from your neighbor whose son downloaded a video game that crashed his computer, to your sister mistakenly clicking a bad link that tricked her into buying shoes she will never get, and even bigger ones, like hackers stealing Target’s entire customer database.
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“Scammers are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal your money, your personal information, or both.” FBI Public Service Announcement, March 2020.
As we are all much too aware, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused massive – and very rapid – economic, political, and societal upheaval. While it has forced lay-offs and shut down entire industries from main street to the mall and beyond, one area that hasn’t seen a slowdown is cybercrime.
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With the increase in largely-publicized security breaches to corporate giants such as Google, Facebook, and Target, terms such as “phishing” and “ransomware” have been growing in popularity. You may know them as the fishy emails from seemingly legitimate companies telling you something is wrong with your account and urging you to insert your credentials.
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