The crime of exploiting open chat rooms to extort money through body camming is on the rise.
In April, Mr. A, an office worker in his 50s in Gyeonggi Province, was browsing his usual messenger when he came across an open chat room.
It had a provocative title and appeared to be set up by a woman.
Intrigued, Mr. A clicked the join button토토사이트, and the creator of the chat room, who was alone with Mr. A, spontaneously started a racy conversation and suggested that they send each other body images.
After Mr. A sent his video, the creator sent a link and said, “To view my video, you must click this link to install the file. When you click on the link, a window will pop up that says, ‘Are you sure you want to install the file’ and asks you to agree.”
However, this was a process to install a malicious hacking program on Mr. A’s phone, and once he installed the file, all of his contacts on his phone were instantly in the hands of the other party.
After taking advantage of Mr. A’s vulnerability in a typical “bodycam phishing” scam, the moderator flipped the script and invited him to join another open chat room.
The creator of the second chat room pressured Mr. A by saying, “If you don’t send 2 million won to a designated account, we will post your body image to your friends.” He sent the money, but the other person kept up the pressure by asking for a larger sum.
The threats only ended after Mr. A sent over 100 million won in 30 transfers over the course of the day.
An investigation was launched, but the problem is that this type of bodycam phishing is not easy to catch in a short period of time because it is perpetrated by multiple people working in a racketeering organization.
The fact that phishing rings share multiple roles, such as luring victims, blackmailing them, withdrawing and forwarding money, and using cannon passbooks to launder money repeatedly also makes it difficult to catch them quickly.
According to the National Police Agency, the number of bodycam phishing incidents has been increasing every year, with 1,824 in 2019, 2,583 in 2020, and 3,26 in 2021.
The police warned that phishing organizations are also evolving their tactics to lure victims into installing malware.