News
Meta cracks down on sextortion scams
Key Points:
- Meta bans accounts involved in financial sextortion.
- 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria were removed.
- Enhanced detection to prevent future scams.
Meta has taken significant steps to combat financial sextortion, targeting scammers who exploit people online. Known as Yahoo Boys, these cybercriminals have been a growing problem, leading Meta to enforce strict measures to stop them.
Financial Sextortion Tactics: In recent years, scammers have increasingly targeted individuals through deceptive online practices. Meta’s expert teams, experienced in tackling such crimes, work closely with specialists to recognize and disrupt these scams. The company has banned Yahoo Boys under its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, which ensures the removal of any accounts linked to this criminal activity as soon as they are detected.
Strategic Network Disruption: Recently, Meta announced a major crackdown on two groups of accounts in Nigeria associated with financial sextortion. This operation led to the removal of approximately 63,000 Instagram accounts. Among these, about 2,500 accounts were connected to a coordinated network involving around 20 individuals. These scammers primarily targeted adult men in the United States, using fake profiles to hide their identities.
Investigative Findings: The coordinated network was identified through new technical signals and detailed investigations by Meta’s expert teams. Many of these accounts had already been detected and disabled by enforcement systems. The investigation helped remove the remaining accounts and improved automated detection systems. While most scam attempts were unsuccessful, they primarily targeted adults and occasionally minors. These cases were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Meta also shared relevant information with other tech companies through the Tech Coalition’s Lantern program to support broader actions against such crimes.
Broader Impact: This operation revealed additional networks in Nigeria attempting similar sextortion scams, leading to the removal of around 63,000 accounts. Meta also eliminated approximately 7,200 assets, including Facebook accounts, Pages, and Groups, that provided tips for conducting scams and shared scripts and guides for fraudulent activities.
Improved Detection and Prevention: Since the disruption, Meta’s systems have been better at identifying and blocking attempts by these groups to resume their activities. New tactics observed have been used to enhance the detection of accounts, Groups, and Pages engaging in such activities. Meta aims to educate users to recognize and avoid these scams while making it harder for criminals to succeed. For instance, teens under 16 (under 18 in certain countries) are now defaulted into stricter messaging settings to prevent them from being contacted by unknown individuals, and Safety Notices encourage them to be cautious.
Advanced Safety Features: Meta has developed new signals to identify accounts potentially engaging in sextortion and is taking steps to prevent these accounts from interacting with teens. Additionally, an on-device nudity protection feature in Instagram DMs is being tested. This feature will blur images detected as containing nudity, encourage caution when sending sensitive images, and direct users to safety tips and resources, including NCMEC’s Take It Down platform.
Take It Down Platform: The Take It Down platform is a service that helps remove online nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken before the age of 18. This service assigns a unique digital fingerprint, called a hash value, to such images or videos. Online platforms use these hash values to detect and remove the content without the image or video ever leaving the user’s device. This process ensures privacy while effectively addressing the issue.
Meta’s proactive measures demonstrate its commitment to creating a safer online environment, significantly disrupting the activities of these cybercriminals and protecting potential victims. By continuously improving its detection systems and collaborating with other tech companies and organizations, Meta aims to stay ahead of these evolving threats.