Description: Scammers, allegedly linked to the Yahoo Boys, are using AI-generated news videos to blackmail victims in sextortion schemes. The videos impersonate news organizations, featuring fabricated reports that accuse victims of crimes, including explicit content distribution. Tutorials for creating these clips are reportedly shared on Telegram, with scammers leveraging the fake broadcasts to pressure victims into paying.
Editor Notes: The Yahoo Boys are reportedly not so much a centralized group as a loosely connected network of individuals and small clusters engaging in cybercrime schemes. In French-language reporting, they are usually referred to as "brouteurs," while in English-language reporting, they are often identified as "Yahoo Boys." While the Yahoo Boys have reportedly been experimenting with deepfake technology since sometime in 2021 or 2022, with these blackmail incidents reportedly beginning in earnest in 2023 and picking up in 2024. The incident date of 01/27/2024 is based off of a WIRED report's publication on the specific vector of impersonating news organizations for the sextortion schemes. Refer as well to the Network Contagion Research Institute's report of 01/30/2024, "A Digital Pandemic: Uncovering the Role of ‘Yahoo Boys’ in the Surge of Social Media-Enabled Financial Sextortion Targeting Minors," available at https://networkcontagion.us/reports/yahoo-boys/. See Incident 911 for more general reporting on Yahoo Boys using deepfakes for romance scams. See Incident 901 for a specific example of how three Yahoo Boys allegedly defrauded a French woman of $850,000 by posing as Brad Pitt. See Incident 913 for information pertaining to their use of AI to allegedly impersonate news organizations to blackmail victims. Refer to Incident 551 for more on the FBI having reported a surge of AI-related sextortion cases.
Entités
Voir toutes les entitésAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Yahoo Boys , Scammers from West Africa , Scammers from Nigeria , Scammers from Ghana et Brouteurs, which harmed Unnamed victims in sextortion schemes , Teenagers targeted in sextortion scams , News organizations impersonated by scammers et CNN.
Système d'IA présumé impliqué: Unknown deepfake apps
Statistiques d'incidents
ID
913
Nombre de rapports
1
Date de l'incident
2025-01-27
Editeurs
Rapports d'incidents
Chronologie du rapport
Lorsque les arnaqueurs en ligne romance et sextortion sentent qu'ils ont trouvé une victime susceptible de leur envoyer de l'argent, ils utilisent toutes sortes de méthodes malveillantes pour se faire payer. Ils se rabattent fréquemment sur…
Variantes
Une "Variante" est un incident qui partage les mêmes facteurs de causalité, produit des dommages similaires et implique les mêmes systèmes intelligents qu'un incident d'IA connu. Plutôt que d'indexer les variantes comme des incidents entièrement distincts, nous listons les variations d'incidents sous le premier incident similaire soumis à la base de données. Contrairement aux autres types de soumission à la base de données des incidents, les variantes ne sont pas tenues d'avoir des rapports en preuve externes à la base de données des incidents. En savoir plus sur le document de recherche.
Incidents similaires
Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents
Incidents similaires
Did our AI mess up? Flag the unrelated incidents