Jared James Abrahams, 20, hacked into as many as 150 online accounts to extort young females into sending him nude photos and video. One of those women was 19-year-old Cassidy Wolf, who told NBC's Today show that she was the victim of a hacker who surreptitiously used the webcam on her computer to spy on her and take pictures of her in various states of undress as she moved around her bedroom. She was tipped off only when she received an anonymous email from the perpetrator. Creepily, there was no sign that the webcam was in use, she said.
Several teens and women in their early 20s were consequently further victimized when Abrahams posted nude photos to their social media accounts, which he had also hacked. Abrahams used the nude photos to extort victims by threatening to publicly post the compromising photos or videos unless the victim either sent more, or engaged in a Skype session with him and did what he said for five minutes. At least two victims consented to the latter, just to keep their photos off the internet.
After being arrested last year by special agents with the FBI, Abrahams pleaded guilty on November 12 to one count of computer hacking and three counts of extortion.
Abrahams targeted young women he knew, and he identified other victims after hacking into Facebook pages. In Wolf’s case, he was actually a high school classmate.
“It's weird for me to be able to put a face to the person who did this to me and to know that it's somebody I went to high school with,” she told the Today show.
Unfortunately, this is only latest in a string of similar cases. In previous sextortion incidents investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office, a Glendale man was sentenced in December to five years in prison, and an Orange County man received a six-year prison term in 2011.
“As digital devices, email accounts, and social media accounts now contain the most intimate details of the public’s daily lives, the impact of this type of hacking and extortion becomes more pronounced, troubling, and far-reaching,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo filed with the court. “In some cases, this type of criminal behavior can be life-changing for the victims – especially for vulnerable victims who may feel it is impossible to rebuild their tarnished reputations. Stated differently, individuals like defendant have the ability to affect a person’s life in frightening ways by using the broad reach of the internet.”
Obviously, everyone should be prudent when posting images online, and as always, users should ensure that their passwords are difficult for others to guess, avoid opening unverified attachments and use reliable anti-virus software with updated definitions. Computer users should also cover their webcams when they’re not in use.