California man accused of hacking webcams to extort women

[Still_Small_Voice]

SANTA ANA, California -- A 19-year-old man was charged Thursday with hacking webcams at the home of Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf and other women to extort nude photos and videos from them, with authorities contending he forced several women to strip.

Jared James Abrahams of Temecula surrendered to agents at the FBI office in Orange County to face a charge of extortion that could send him to federal prison for up to two years, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

He was later freed on $50,000 bail but a judge confined him to his family home, ordered him to wear a Global Positioning S monitor, and said he could only use the home computer for schoolwork, with software to be installed that will monitor its use.

Authorities said Abrahams knew Wolf, a 19-year-old graduate of Great Oak High School in Temecula who won the Miss Teen USA crown Aug. 9. She is identified only by her initials in the criminal complaint.

Last month, Wolf told the website of NBC's "Today" show that earlier this year she received an anonymous email in which the sender claimed to have stolen images from the camera on her home computer.

The sender of the email threatened to go public with images captured from Wolf's webcam unless she would provide nude pictures of herself, Eimiller said -- a crime commonly known as "sextortion."

Instead, Wolf went to authorities, and an investigation was launched in March.

A federal complaint filed on September 17 and unsealed Thursday charges him with extortion but Eimiller said other charges are possible.

An FBI agent's affidavit, included in the complaint, contends that Abrahams used malicious software to remotely operate webcams to capture nude photos and videos of at least seven women as they changed clothes -- some of whom he knew personally and others he found by hacking Facebook pages.

The agent alleged that Abrahams, when interviewed, acknowledged controlling 30 to 40 hacked computers and extorting some women.

Abrahams, a college freshman majoring in computer science, allegedly would use the women's webcams to capture nude images, then send emails threatening to post them on their hacked social media accounts unless they either sent him nude photos, a nude video, or logged onto the Skype video chat service and follow his orders for five minutes.

He allegedly threatened Wolf that unless she heeded his demands, he would release her nude photos "all over the Internet" and "your dream of being a model will be transformed into a pornstar."

According to the affidavit, the victims included several women from other countries.

One teenager in Ireland responded to the demands by writing: "Please remember I'm 17. Have a heart," according to the court record.

Abrahams allegedly responded: "I'll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart. However, I do stick to my deals. Also age doesn't mean a thing to me!!!"

The girl then allegedly stripped during a Skype session, according to the FBI affidavit. A woman in Canada also stripped, according to the document.

He also allegedly received webcam photographs from women in Southern California, Baltimore and Russia, according to the court document.

Abrahams' case follows two earlier California trials in which hackers pleaded guilty to accessing computers and obtaining nude photos.

Karen "Gary" Kazaryan of Glendale pleaded guilty in July to hacking into hundreds of social media and email accounts to get women to pose naked for him. Authorities said he targeted as many as 350 women. He pleaded guilty to identity theft and unauthorized use of a protected computer.

In December, a federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Christopher Chaney of Florida to 10 years in prison after he broke into the personal online accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and other women and posted nude photos and other material on the Internet.

Edit:

Calif. man accused of hacking webcams in Miss Teen USA nude photos extortion plot | NOLA.com

Edited September 27, 2013 by Still_Small_Voice

[Still_Small_Voice]

If I were you I would make sure there are no cellular phones, iPads or computer cameras where you change your clothes or bathe.

[jerome1232]

I want details of how he compromised the computers. I'll bet it involved social engineering.

[Lakumi]

I would have called the crime Sexpliotation, but that's a genre of movies so...

[Praetorian_Brow]

Seems strange to fall for the demands of somehow who is blackmailing and probably initially as previously mentioned, through social engineering. I bet technical engineering happened only after social research of some kind.

It seems like a version of Stockholm Syndrome, helping ones aggressor and I feel for the exploited women but also scratch my head in confusion in regards to how these women got themselves into this position to be open to exploitation of this degree.

Although whats funny, is that I am sure NSA has more of this stuff on file than is comforting.

I am surprised he wasn't banned from computers, difficult to enforce, but he got off lightly.

[carlimac]

Really?? Who has nude photos of themselves on their computers? I guess maybe some 17 yr old girls might but I don't think most people would. Am I naïve or just a 54 yr old Mormon lady?

[JimmiGerman]

SANTA ANA, California -- A 19-year-old man was charged Thursday with hacking webcams at the home of Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf and other women to extort nude photos and videos from them, with authorities contending he forced several women to strip.

A young man with abilities of hacking computer systems by the Internet, manipulating cams and who gets someone purely psychological to do something what he wants should not be accused or sentenced but get a leading position at the NSA or other secret services spying out what people say or do. It would be a waste of resources not to train and not to employ such a wicked young man for national safety reasons and higher tasks instead of sending him to prison.

See it like this: if somebody is already so effective without an agent education, how good or more effective he would merely be with an agent education?

Linux Mint version 13, Free Open Source Operating System

An operating system that is more secure against viruses and malicious software.

I'm using Linux based Ubuntu 12.04 free open source operating system. I think it is also more secure against malicious software. No problems yet.

Edited September 28, 2013 by JimmiGerman

[Mahone]

Seems strange to fall for the demands of somehow who is blackmailing and probably initially as previously mentioned, through social engineering. I bet technical engineering happened only after social research of some kind.

It seems like a version of Stockholm Syndrome, helping ones aggressor and I feel for the exploited women but also scratch my head in confusion in regards to how these women got themselves into this position to be open to exploitation of this degree.

No, definitely not Stockholm Syndrome. Just sheer blackmail. He took pictures of them with their webcam without their knowledge after he broke into their computers, and then threatened to sent that picture to everyone they knew, unless they followed his demands. Most teenage girls have their computers in their bedroom and don't like their own bodies, could you imagine the sheer embarrassment of the idea of having everyone looking at a naked picture of them, when they didn't even know it was being taken in a place that has an expectation of privacy? They would do almost anything to stop him putting it out on the internet, including giving him yet further pictures.

Really?? Who has nude photos of themselves on their computers? I guess maybe some 17 yr old girls might but I don't think most people would. Am I naïve or just a 54 yr old Mormon lady?

I believe in most cases, he took the pictures, not the girls themselves.

As for how he did this, the fact that he knew some of his victims outside of the internet suggests to me that he probably programmed a quick malicious application that when installed on a computer, gave him the ability to remotely access it and probably logged the victims key strokes so he could get passwords for their accounts. He probably sent this out via a facebook link, hoping people would click on and install this application, probably disguised as a game.

He'd then take over the victims facebook accounts and do the same thing over again to people on their friends list.

There is nothing complex or clever about what he did. It doesn't require any high level of intelligence, didn't exploit any technical barrier, and used techniques that have been known of, highly documented and commonly used for the past 20 or so years. It's so basic that it couldn't even be classed as hacking, it's sheer social engineering which on facebook, is not difficult to accomplish. He got the victim to do the technically hard work for him by installing his application on their machine, saving him having to do any hacking, and then took advantage.

Edited September 28, 2013 by Mahone

[JimmiGerman]

There is nothing complex or clever about what he did. It doesn't require any high level of intelligence, didn't exploit any technical barrier, and used techniques that have been known of, highly documented and commonly used for the past 20 or so years. It's so basic that it couldn't even be classed as hacking, it's sheer social engineering which on facebook, is not difficult to accomplish. He got the victim to do the technically hard work for him by installing his application on their machine, saving him having to do any hacking, and then took advantage.

Maybe you're right. And in this case it frightens me even more what specialized institutions and secret services would be able to spy out and manipulate.

[Mahone]

Maybe you're right. And in this case it frightens me even more what specialized institutions and secret services would be able to spy out and manipulate.

Well, yes. If you're referring to the US government in particular then it's worth remembering that the head offices of most large technology companies are located in the states, like Microsoft, Apple and Cisco, all under the power of the US government.

In China, they won't use any of microsoft or apple operating systems or application software or any networking kit made by an American company in Chinese government offices, as they suspect the US government are using these companies to aid them in international espionage, by placing back doors in their kit.

[JimmiGerman]

Well, yes. If you're referring to the US government in particular then it's worth remembering that the head offices of most large technology companies are located in the states, like Microsoft, Apple and Cisco, all under the power of the US government.

In China, they won't use any of microsoft or apple operating systems or application software or any networking kit made by an American company in Chinese government offices, as they suspect the US government are using these companies to aid them in international espionage, by placing back doors in their kit.

Yes, I mean those companies you've mentioned, but not only them. I also mean secret services or under their direction agitating organisations or groups. Remember the cyber attacks against Estonia in April 2007, when nearly the whole public life there was being paralized for a certain time (banks, payment transactions, the parliament, the broadcast etc.). That was an impressing lesson on modern warfare given by an unknown but surely most effective group.

In Germany we have a distinctive data and privacy protection by legal regulations. That makes things not easy if you take a view on crime investigations or tax evasion, but most people here wouldn't like to become spied out by the authorities. See what has happened here when it was played out that the NSA is collecting and making use of everyone's data and some German institutions were involved.

Yes, recently I've learned from a TV reportage about those worries of the Chinese, and they are fearing those "back doors" in application software or imported kits. Industrial espionage and sabotage is another important aspect.

Edited September 28, 2013 by JimmiGerman