Security24.01.2025

Warning about new type of scam in South Africa

South Africans should be wary of someone trying to befriend them on social media and sending them intimate images in an attempt to coerce them into sending one back, then extorting them.

While blackmail is not new, a new version of the scam has increasingly started targeting high schoolers. Scammers are also spending more time building trust with their victims.

This is according to KnowBe4’s Anna Collard, who said they know of fifty boys who have already taken their lives after being extorted. The youngest was 12 years old.

Collard is a security trainer and evangelist whose career began at Internet Solutions in 2001 as a security product developer.

In 2003, she moved to Internet Solutions’ parent company, Dimension Data, where she worked in security business development and later as a security consultant between Munich and Cape Town.

She worked for Dimension Data for twelve years and also did a stint at FireID and later at Old Mutual as a security architecture lead.

In 2012, she launched her own security awareness business called Popcorn Training, which KnowBe4 acquired in 2020.

At a recent security event organised by Orange Cyberdefense, Collard explained that extortionists use various tactics to try and convince their victims that they are speaking to a real romantic interest.

This includes hacking into dormant accounts of a real person, or creating convincing-looking fake accounts.

“They have hundreds of thousands of fake profiles using AI to either generate pretty girls, or they’ve stolen existing images from real girls that they reuse,” she said.

“They then contact high schoolers in particular. They’ll find the guys that have a lot to lose, like your captains and so on.”

Collard said they befriended as many people at that high school or the victim’s sports club as possible to appear more legitimate.

Once they’ve established a rapport, they’ll try to exploit people’s natural inclination towards reciprocity.

“You know, I’ll share a new picture of myself first, then — remember, they are teenagers — get you to share one back,” said Collard.

As soon as they get an explicit image of the victim, the extortion begins.

They will use language like they know who all their friends are, they know where they go to school, and unless they pay the image and the story of how he was manipulated will go out to the whole world.

Collard explained that scammers are targeting teenagers because they are more easily manipulated.

“Your emotional development doesn’t finish until your mid-20s,” she said.

If a teenager gets put under pressure, they can more easily be manipulated to make a poor decision.

“And this is the scary thing. These guys know exactly what language to use and how to put the pressure on,” said Collard.

“It’s a really dangerous combination of sort generated emotional vulnerability and impulsiveness.”

Anna Collard, KnowBe4

Regarding these types of extortion scams targeting teenagers, Collard said it has become critical to drive awareness and get the message into schools that it is not the end of the world for victims of these attacks.

“There are ways out of it. Obviously, first prize is never sending explicit images to anyone online,” said Collard.

“However, in the event that you make a mistake — don’t take your life over it. There are takedown services and other tools to get out of it.”

Collard explained that whether it is a romance scam, job scam, or another kind of con, the attack always starts with a social engineering “human hacking” to manipulate someone.

“I believe that if we take our zero-trust concept from a technical environment into the human space — fostering a healthy scepticism — where we need to teach people to verify before they trust anything.”

Amygdala hijack

Collard said one very useful tool to guard against an “amygdala hijack” is to pause before reacting.

“They put you under pressure because they want you to feel an emotion,” she said. This impairs your ability to think critically.

Collard several nations have embraced the concept of building people’s cognitive defences.

“This is something we can learn from other nations like Finland, Estonia, and Taiwan,” she said.

“They’ve identified Cognitive Defense as a national defence strategy, and they’re coming up with innovative programmes to help people be more vigilant and sceptical.”

Something specific children could be taught to look out for is people trying to make them feel too good.

She explained that scammers often start off with love bombing.

“You know, ‘Oh, you’re so amazing. I love your profile,'” she said.

“Teach your kids that’s probably not right. If you feel too good, if somebody makes you feel too good, you might be manipulated.”

Show comments

Latest news

More news

Trending news

Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter