Approximately 70,000 cumulative profiles, Pages, and groups have been removed from Facebook and Instagram as a result of Meta’s significant action against a well-known sextortion group operating out of Nigeria.
Additionally, the mechanisms to prevent them from returning have been strengthened.
According to Meta, these accounts were linked to the “Yahoo Boys,” a well-known ring of con artists. Yahoo Boys used to rely on the classic “Nigerian Prince” scam, in which they would attempt to con gullible people by promising them wealth. However, in more recent times, they have shifted to romance scams, in which they fabricate profiles in order to trick their victims into parting with money or personal information in order to keep the relationship going.
Alternatively, as demonstrated by Meta’s most recent campaign, they utilize private photos to trick their victims into paying them money.
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“We deleted almost 63,000 Nigerian Instagram profiles that were directly involved in cash extortion schemes. Among these was a more compact, well-organized network of about 2,500 accounts, which we connected to a cluster of about 20 people. They mostly targeted adult males in the US, hiding their identities behind fictitious accounts.
63k profiles is a big number, and you can see how this organization may try to scare targets with such a large-scale coordinated effort.
Furthermore, Meta reports that by utilizing a mix of novel technical signals and procedures, it discovered a coordinated network comprising approximately 2,500 accounts.
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“Our enforcement systems had already found and disabled the majority of these accounts; this investigation helped us remove the rest and gained additional insight into the methods being employed to enhance our automated detection.”
In other words, Meta has effectively been able to use this research to gain additional knowledge on the ways in which Yahoo Boys and other groups plan and collaborate in order to put pressure on users.
which should put Meta in a better position to prevent such incidents in the future, but as is always the case, as detection systems advance, so do the strategies used by these groups. Although it’s still a cat and mouse game, Meta appears to have prevailed in some of the bigger, more significant (at scale) incidents overall, according to its continuous reporting.
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Meta eliminated 5,700 groups and 1,300 Facebook pages that had been disseminating advice on how to pull off online frauds in addition to these profiles. These groups appeared to be connected to the Yahoo Boys group as well.
“They attempted to deceive people by sharing links to photo collections and by offering to sell scripts and instructions for con artists to use when creating fictitious accounts.”
Sextortion and romance scams rank among the most heinous forms of cybercrime because they prey on helpless and desperate individuals and make unfulfilled promises. Of course, many frauds prey on vulnerabilities, but these particular malware appear particularly heinous, so it’s encouraging to see Meta taking additional action to eradicate them.
But once more, con artists are going to change, and with the advent of artificial intelligence, they have a wealth of new avenues to launch their scams.
With any luck, Meta will be able to keep up with this evolution of technologies and keep the enforcement of the law somewhat balanced.
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