Men buy hacking tools to use against their wives and boyfriends

Thousands of men They are members cable A new study has revealed groups and channels advertising and selling hacking and surveillance services that can be used to harass boyfriends, wives, girlfriends and ex-partners. The findings, by a European non-profit group, also indicate that the communities are engaged in the widespread trade, sale and promotion of a wide variety of offensive content, including non-consensual intimate images of women, or so-called strip Servicesas well as folders of images that the sellers claim contain child sexual abuse material and depictions of incest and rape.

Over the course of six weeks earlier this year, researchers at the algorithm auditing group AI Forensics Analyzed nearly 2.8 million messages It was sent across 16 Italian and Spanish communities on Telegram that regularly post offensive content targeting women and girls. The analysis says that more than 24,000 members of Telegram groups and channels participated in posting 82,723 photos, videos and audio files over the course of the study. Many posts target celebrities and influencers, but men in the groups also often victimize women they know.

“We tend to forget that most of the victims are ordinary women who sometimes don’t know that their photos are being shared or manipulated in these type of channels,” says Silvia Simenzen, a researcher at AI Forensics who previously uncovered Italian Telegram channels engaging in similar behavior. Dating back to 2019. “The majority of these acts of violence are directed toward people the perpetrators know,” she says, suggesting that Telegram, which has more than a billion monthly active users, According to According to the company’s founder Pavel Durov, it should be subject to more stringent regulation and be classified as a “very large online platform” under Internet safety rules in Europe.

As with Durov, the results are coming Fighting behind Against Russia’s efforts to ban the messaging app in that country, which has long positioned itself as a messaging app that allows freedom of expression but has at the same time… user By some to share terrorist, Sexual assaultand Cybercrime materials. Durov is Under criminal investigation in France regarding alleged criminal activity occurring on Telegram, although he has consistently denied the allegations.

A Telegram spokesperson told WIRED that the company removes “millions” of pieces of content daily using “custom AI tools” and has Politics in Europe Which does not allow the promotion of violence, illegal sexual content including non-consensual images, other content such as defamation, and the sale of illegal goods and services.

Among the broad types of abusive content and services observed by forensic AI researchers, there were frequent references to accessing, disseminating and defaming women’s private information, sharing Instagram or TikTok content, as well as references to spying or hacking. “Victims are often named, tagged, and located via shared profile links,” the group’s report says.

A translated post on Telegram titled “Professional Affiliate Hacking” claimed to be able to give customers “access to phone gallery and extract photos and videos,” as well as “anonymous social media hacking.” Another message says: “I hack and restore any kind of social media service. I can spy on your partner’s account. Send me a private message.”

Across the dataset there were over 18,000 mentions of espionage or espionage content. One post reads: “Hey, want to spy on a girl’s photo gallery? We sell a bot that does this to get information directly via DMs.” Meanwhile, users were observed asking if people can find phone numbers linked to Instagram accounts and other requests, “Who exchanges spy photos and videos?”