@HaybatBarradh
Technical expert Taher Al-Balawi warned against being led by prostitutes who found social media a fertile environment for blackmailing young people and those with prestigious jobs.
Al-Balawi noted the need to take care of the matter and carry out a large awareness campaign that reaches all members of society, and no one is excluded from it.
He added to Okaz, saying: “In order to reduce this phenomenon, I believe that there is a major role that falls on the government sector and the private sector by alerting their employees to raise the level of awareness and confirming that these operations are behind global gangs and networks that are not underestimated, because it is possible to target office holders and extortion.” In it, it will not only be financial, but also blackmail my information by passing on certain information, and it may be passed without the victim noticing through the conversations, and although the Communications and Information Technology Commission in Saudi Arabia has recently begun to carry out campaigns, they are weak and below the desired level.
Al-Balawi called on the youth not to get carried away with suspicious relationships, and not to respond to these matters with naivety, despite the openness taking place in the world now. He added, "The victim, at the time of trauma and under threat, may be unable to think and obey what they want, and this is the biggest mistake, although the solution may be easy, but it requires prudence, deliberation, and taking an expert opinion in these matters."
He said: “The outbreak of extortion appeared a few years ago on social media and visual communication, and they often target well-known names in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, whether those with positions or ordinary people, and they monitor the nature of people’s lives, their economic and employment conditions, and even their friends through the means of communication, and classify This work is an “information crime” behind which girls work. They get to know people and collect as much information about them, their friends and their community, then lure them into visual communication programs and work to lure them. After they fall into the trap, the blackmail process begins. In fact, they are not just girls, but gangs and networks.
Al-Balawi continued, “The process is just a relationship of friendship that develops into other things, in which the girl records calls and records clips, then the blackmail process begins by downloading the link on YouTube without anyone seeing it, to play with the victim’s nerves and put pressure on him, so he either responds to physical blackmail or publishes the clip.” On “YouTube” or work on exposing him and sending him to his friends list on “Facebook”, for example, and often the extortion of sums of money is repeated every once in a while if there is no intervention by a technical expert or a security agency.
Al-Balawi confirms that such cases occurred with people who resorted to him and contacted him, and they were forced to pay at first, and they expected that the matter would stop at that, but they did not stop at this point, so they used to blackmail the victim every time, and the amount of extortion depends on the victim’s condition, either in the local currency or in dollars.
Al-Balawi demanded that the victim, who is exposed to such tricks, quickly delete his online account, “Twitter, Facebook, Instagram”, for a while, then return to it and contact “Google” to cancel the leaked clips and cancel the channel.
Haibat Barada (Riyadh)