Today, roughly 53% of the world owns a smartphone, carrying a video camera with them everywhere they go. Our devices allow us to capture precious moments of our lives, but they can also open us up to online scams. Bad actors can steal, alter, and completely manufacture media that can be used to manipulate or blackmail their targets. The advancement of technology has made these schemes difficult to identify, but you can apply the information below to protect yourself from online video scams.
Types of Video Scams
Cybercriminals use videos in a number of ways. They may use a video of you — doctored or unaltered — as blackmail leverage and say they will share it with your close contacts. Or, they might post the scam video to YouTube and other video sharing platforms.
In some instances, they may use an AI-generated video to inspire you to carry out a certain action. Knowing the different types of video scams can help you plan your response.
Video Blackmail
You may receive a message online saying that the sender has obtained video of you doing something you’d rather not have the public see. They tell you they will delete the video if you pay them. However, if you refuse their request, your video will be plastered across the internet on sites like YouTube.
While not always, these messages are often part of mass-produced blackmail schemes targeting thousands of unsuspecting internet users. The perpetrators often get base-level information from data breaches and insert them Mad Libs-style into a generic script, hoping anyone will bite.
Deepfakes
AI is the hot topic of the technological world. While its use can be fun and beneficial, it can also enable cybercrime. Scammers can use deepfake technology to commit financial fraud, solicit private information, and even accuse people of crimes they never committed.
Recently, there have been numerous different large-scale scams that have utilized the tool in different ways. Deepfake celebrity endorsements have been running rampant on social media. Now, organized crime groups are creating augmented news reports that appear to depict their target committing heinous crimes to use as blackmail leverage.
Phishing
What better way to “prove” your stolen identity than to provide a video that appears to confirm it. With the aforementioned deepfake technology, scammers can create convincing videos to accompany their phishing attacks with as little as eight minutes and $11.
These schemes can even dupe high-up executives. In 2023, an employee at a multinational firm joined what he thought was a video conference with the CFO. In reality, it was a deepfake video – and the employee ended up transferring roughly $25 million to the scammers.
On another note, some phishing attacks target users of video streaming platforms, otherwise known as Amazon Prime video scams. In these schemes, scammers will set up malicious websites that attract searches such as “how to create Prime account” or “setting up Prime Video on my device”. When victims enter their credentials, the scammer gains access to their account information.
Hacked Webcam
One of the oldest and most popular video blackmail scams involves hacked webcams. While there are forms of malware that can truly give a hacker access to your webcam and the ability to record you, these assertions are often bluffs.
A popular version of this scam involves blackmail video and the perpetrator sending mass emails to unsuspecting targets. The emails allege that the sender hacked the victim’s webcam and recorded compromising videos. They say they will delete the video after the target pays. Truthfully, the hacker is falsely declaring to have videos and actually never accessed the target’s webcam.
Video Chat Scams
You may think that joining a video chat with an individual online would confirm their identity. However, advances in technology have enabled cybercriminals to forge video calls with prerecorded or AI-generated video feeds.
This is the case in a social media scam where perpetrators record a video of their victims and then doctor and reuse the video to target the victim’s friends. They use the victim’s likeness to ask for money over video calls. When friends join the video calls, they are also recorded by the criminal, and the video recording scam perpetuates.
Another popular video call scam targets marketplace messaging boards. Scammers will pretend to be an interested buyer and ask to move the conversation to an external platform to join a video call. From there, they will request that the seller share their screen, allowing them to steal their financial data.
Common Tactics Used by Video Scammers
- Fake or Spoofed Accounts: Scammers may use a completely fabricated identity or borrow one from a trusted entity while they acquire blackmail material.
- Social Engineering: Once they’ve initiated contact, cybercriminals will strategically manipulate their target emotionally. There are no lies they aren’t willing to tell you to get you to believe their story.
- Malware: Scammers may employ malicious software to track your keystrokes, access your webcam, and extract your data. This can enable them to obtain videos of you that can be used in blackmail scams.
How to Respond to an Online Video Scam
- Stay Calm: We know how stressful video scams can be, but you need to remain level-headed and approach the situation with speed and precision.
- Cut off Communication: You shouldn’t outright block the scammer. Instead, wait until after you’ve conducted an investigation, but don’t engage them any further.
- Collect Evidence: Take screenshots of any accounts that have contacted you, messages they’ve sent, and any other data that will help you reconstruct the timeline of events.
- Report the Scam: Inform law enforcement and the platform where the attack took place. This step is integral to the future safety of you and all other internet users.
- Contact Professionals: If you need help at any step of the way, you may want to consider the assistance of cyber security professionals like the team at Cyber Investigation Inc.
How Cyber Investigation Inc. Can Help You Deal with Video Scammers
At Cyber Investigation Inc., our team of experts know exactly what to do to combat blackmailers. We can analyze your devices for any malware or unauthorized access to determine if your system has actually been compromised.
Our proprietary tools and techniques allow us to analyze metadata and other digital trails left behind by your online interactions. Through this, we can determine the IP address, geolocation, and even the devices used to attack you.
If you believe your blackmailer has already disclosed videos of you, we can scour the internet to find any instances where they have been posted. This includes mainstream video platforms like YouTube as well as lesser-known dark web outlets.
We document our entire process from start to finish to ensure the chain of custody is maintained. This upholds the validity of your report and allows you to use it as evidence against your blackmailer in legal proceedings.
Staying Vigilant to Avoid Future Video Scammers
- Secure Your Accounts: Check your online accounts for any unauthorized login attempts and terminate any sessions which you don’t recognize as your own.
- Audit Your Online Presence: Take time to evaluate the content you share online and consider how it could be used against you by a blackmailer.
- Analyze Videos: While altered media can be convincing, you can often see through the façade by looking for details such as weird shadows and lighting, lip movement that doesn’t match the audio, and other abnormalities that almost appear to be a “glitch”.
- Verify Identities: Using the internet requires a zero-trust mindset. You should always confirm that the person you are speaking with is actually who they say they are by reverse image searching their photos, asking personal questions, and vetting their profiles.
And if you ever need help dealing with online video blackmail, Cyber Investigation Inc. is here. Don’t deal with this alone. Reach out today and speak with one of our specialists and begin your journey toward reclaiming your life.
