Let us help all not to be victims of sextortion. – By Nisal Rukshan
Image Source : kaspersky
We are experiencing different elements of life every day. Have you ever heard of the word “sextortion”? Sometimes you may have heard that some people have been victimized by the leak of nude photos, videos, erotic chats, voice clips, etc. to the internet and thereby had to face with threatening or blackmailing by a third party, to avoid circulating or deleting the leaked stuff to comply with their demands. This can be happened in many ways; threatening or demanding to do or to avoid in doing something or forced to pay a considerable amount of money or demanding to handover a valuable asset etc.
A situation, where a perpetrator threaten or demand for money, valuable asset or to perform any act for not to circulate or to delete the said material from the internet is meant as ‘Sextortion’ in the dictionaries.
Sextortion can begin in various ways in our day to day life; at the end of a love affair – one of the partners can be a victim, when someone get repaired his or her mobile phone or laptop from a shop – data in your device may be collected by the repairer, then the owner of the device, and s can be a victim. Similarly, there’s a possibility that any person can be a victim of sextortion by way of sharing intimate images via different applications, data theft, data transferring. Unauthorized hidden devices like hidden cameras and voice recorders are also playing a vital role in increasing sextortion in the present day society.
Especially, this is happening in digital and in social media platforms. Hence, it is necessary to have better cognition and to take precautions over it. Sometimes you can avoid the happening of such events with following some simple tips, such as not adding suspicious profiles to your friend list (especially the locked Facebook accounts, FB accounts with no profile pictures, no details and acts like hidden people). In the meantime, you can recognize such people by their way of life; for example, fast moving, expressing strong emotions, trying to tackle the privacy, talking about sexuality, and requesting to have a nude images or build up sexual relationships online. During such activities, they refrain from showing their selves from the devices with some excuses like “my camera is broken” and they will send pictures pretending those belong to them. In some situations, they may act as needy people and ask for money for their personal needs like medical treatment, family problems, children’s education etc.
If such kind of a behavior with a new request comes on your way when engaging in social media, it’s better to be careful without getting into unwanted traps. Similarly, you must be aware of what you are doing and the repercussions you have to face with if something goes wrong; leaking of a video or taken your data by a third party.
If unfortunately, if you happened to be a victim of sextortion, don’t panic; you still have options to overcome from such situations. Be mindful, be tricky, and don’t go for the pay option immediately. Collect evidence, collect the circulated links, record all calls, etc. Then immediately go to the nearest police station with all the evidence and lodge a complaint. Thereafter, you can breathe freely, the justice will be with you.
In Sri Lanka, the assistance of the Police Department is available for those who have been victimized by sextortion and other cybercrimes. Hence, do not hesitate to seek assistance from the Children and Women’s Bureau of the Police, located in all the Police stations, Cyber Crime Unit.
If a survivor is over 18, he/ she can contact the Cyber Crime Unit established under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The Cyber Crime Unit can be contacted through the +94 11 2 326 979 telephone line or through the general line of the CID (+94 11 2 320 141). Survivors can also contact the police department via email at dir.cid@police.lk and telligp@police.lk. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) – Founded in 2006, CERT is focused on reacting to and proactively strengthening security against potential cyber-attacks. CERT provides technical assistance & guidance to survivors in certain areas but does not carry out any investigative or legal actions. CERT can be contacted through +94 11 2 691 692/ +94 11 2 695 749/ +94 11 2 679 888 telephone lines or through cert@cert.gov.lk email address. Social media-related incidents can be reported through the report@cert.gov.lk email address, and Protecting Environment and Children Everywhere (PEaCE) is currently engaged in raising awareness on Online Sexual Exploitation of Children around the country. They provide assistance to children who survived from the sexual exploitation.
Nisal Rukshan, MHRM, BA (Defence), BSc (Hons.) Counselling Psychology, DCPsy
Email: rukshan4slsr@gmail.com
