The growing business of sexual extortion online is receiving help from mobile applications designed to raid victims’ computers and cellphones.
The hacking applications, including at least one designed for Android phones, siphon off contacts and passwords for use in blackmailing a victim who has performed embarrassing sexual acts during an Internet chat.
{mosads}The trend is seen as an escalation of more typical “sextortion” schemes in which a criminal lures a victim into a chat, records them performing a sexual act and then threatens to expose them unless they pay.
The apps create an additional step in which a criminal, often feigning a connection problem during the chat, encourages the victim to download software that then exfiltrates their personal information.
Sometimes the malware also intercepts outgoing texts and calls, or turns a victim’s phone into a recording device, according to The New York Times.
The schemes were documented by security firm Trend Micro, which traced the app developers to China and said victims were predominantly located in China and Korea.
“The sextortion schemes we uncovered are complex operations that involve people across cultures and nations working together to effectively run a very lucrative business,” the report stated, according to the Times.