U.S. Military’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’ – It Is Being Called Sextortion

Military Sees Increase in ‘Sextortion’ Cases (Photo: Public Domain)

December 6, 2016

Written by Lorra B.

Lonely and away from home you scroll online through social media to pass the time and the next thing you know you have exchanged pictures with someone. Not a problem, unless those pictures have left you exposed, literally.

Now you are being blackmailed for hundreds of dollars and if you don’t pay up your life is threatened to be turned upside down as you are told your photo (or video) will be shared with everyone you know.

Sextortion is described by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) as a “cybercrime perpetrated against unwitting victims who are approached in casual conversation via social media and then seduced into engaging in online sexual activities. After fulfilling the sexual requests, which are recorded without the victim’s knowledge or consent, the victim is threatened with public exposure and embarrassment if he does not pay a specified sum of money to the perpetrator, usually through a wire transfer.”

Military service members are being urged not to engage in explicit sexual activities online as the number of sextortion cases grow, reportsMilitary.com. Since August of 2012 more than 180 marines and sailors have fallen victim to this scam with a request for payment usually between $500 to $1,500.

Megan Bolduc, NCIS Division Chief, stated, “We’ve had service members individually pay as much as $11,000. It only stops because credit cards were maxed out.”

The concern isn’t just about a military member’s indiscretions it is also about National Security. According to Katherine McDonald with NCIS, “The concern really is twofold: the concern of harm to themselves and, on a national security level, a lot of these service members do have [security] clearances.”

The concern is that criminals will try to obtain ‘sensitive’ information from service members.

According to a spokesperson for NCIS, Ed Buice, “Screen captures or printouts of the conversations or anything like that is always very helpful. We have cyber agents who try to follow the electronic trail to get any information that’s available.”

Regardless of efforts to warn, educate and discourage military service members from falling victim to these predators, the sextortion reports continue to climb.

Bolduc stated, “Part of that, too, is that we have gotten the word out in so many different ways and encouraged reporting. I think people are more willing to come forward, but incidents are also increasing.”

The Philippines receive most of the wire transfers from the victims because complaints of wrongdoing must be filed in person.

McDonald stated that a ring of 50 were busted in the Philippines earlier this year. According to MilitaryTimes, “The organization was somewhat sophisticated. It had a payroll and offered bonuses to employees who swindled the most money. But on the whole, sextortion is difficult to prosecute. In the Philippines, for instance, the government requires that a victim come in person to file a report.”

Even though a victim pays does not insure that the photo or video in question will not be exposed. Often the media finds its way to Facebook or Youtube anyway, according to Bolduc. You can, however, inform the sites and request they be taken down.

“If you call and report the issue, they will take the videos down.”

All of the efforts to prosecute the scammers has so far proven impossible and not one has been prosecuted.

If you have fallen victim, law enforcement officials encourage you to NOT send money, stop all communication and save all correspondence.

 

Written by Lorra B.

Feds Investigating ‘ISIS Kill List,’ Military Spouse Says Families Warned To Be ‘Vigilant’

(Screenshot Credit, FoxNews.com)

March 24, 2015

FoxNews.com:

An Islamic State “kill list” with the names, addresses and photos of American military members has triggered a federal investigation, the White House confirmed — and one military spouse told Fox News she’s already heard from someone, who said they were with NCIS, urging her family to be vigilant.

The military spouse, who was willing to discuss details on the condition of anonymity because she says her family fears for their safety, said the information posted by ISIS sympathizers is accurate — and she knows several other families identified on the web by the terror group. The original posting listed information for dozens of American servicemembers and called on ISIS sympathizers to kill them. 

“We had a call from an NCIS agent on Saturday who said we were on the ‘ISIS kill list,'” the military spouse told Fox News. “The agent wanted to verify our name and address as accurate. He said the threat should be considered. We need to be vigilant, but there was no guidance on what to do and no meeting in person to do a security assessment of our home.” 

Based on conversations with other families, the spouse said at least a handful of names are directly connected to the U.S.-led air campaign over Iraq and Syria targeting ISIS. Their husbands are pilots or are connected to the aircraft carriers. They believe the photos were pulled from open source material and media reporting about the campaign and the military. 

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said at Monday’s briefing that it doesn’t appear any information system was breached. He said it appears the information was taken from social media. 

 

He confirmed the FBI is the lead investigator here, and said the Obama administration is in touch with branches of the military to ensure steps are taken to notify personnel.

“We obviously take the safety and security of our military personnel very seriously,” Earnest said. 

The military spouse who spoke with Fox News, however, disagreed with the White House claim that the images were from social media, telling Fox News that “the way it is being presented implicates the service members when, in fact, many of these photos were published by the Navy PR machine.” 

She also said there was no immediate contact from the FBI, and the family has not heard what the bureau and NCIS may be doing to verify and thwart any threat directed toward military families. She said an in-person meeting is now expected from the FBI and NCIS, but it comes several days after the “ISIS kill list” was posted. 

“I don’t know whether to let our kids play basketball out front of the house,” she said of her family-friendly Virginia neighborhood. “I don’t know if we can get housing on base. But moving onto base would be letting ISIS intimidate us and win.” 

A defense official told Fox News that “each service is doing notifications for service members whose IDs were posted by ISIS/ISIS affiliated hackers,” adding that Twitter and YouTube agreed to take down the posting. The U.S. Cyber Command is also investigating. 

“The safety our service members is always a concern. We always encourage our personnel to exercise appropriate [operational security] and force protection procedures,” the defense official explained. 

A Navy official said every effort is being made to meet with the families in person but confirmed they did have to make some phone calls when in-person meetings were not possible. 

“NCIS is actively evaluating this threat reporting and working with law enforcement and U.S. intelligence partners to address this incident,” the official said. “NCIS has met with almost all named Navy and Marine Corps service members to notify them of this threat and discuss their concerns.”

More at FoxNews.com

Disclaimer: This article was not written by SilentSoldier.