University of Delaware student targeted in sextortion crime; expert talks cyber safety

A University of Delaware student is the latest victim of a crime that officials say has spread across college campuses: criminals demanding a ransom to stop them from releasing explicit photos of the victim.

Combining sexual photos with extortion, the crime has come to be known as " sextortion ."

Iyanna Register was one of the University of Delaware students who received the alert that went out via email early Tuesday morning.

"It says something along the lines of there was extortion involved where people were sending pictures and 'Oh you have to give me money,'" noted Register.

The student who was victimized reported the sextortion Monday night.

A crime alert sent out to students read in part:

"The University of Delaware has been notified of a Jeanne Clery Act stalking (extortion via social media), which occurred during the evening of 7/15/2024. Colleges and Universities across the U.S. have been experiencing an increase in extortion cases involving contacts made through social media sites."

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"When we're talking about college students being targeted, we're generally talking about male students where the objective is financial gain," said Rob D'Ovidio, an associate professor at Drexel University where he does research in the area of high-tech crime.

D'Ovidio noted that while men are often targeted in sextortion cases for money, women and children can also be targeted by criminals who demand more sexually explicit photos and videos, or even sexual favors.

"These offenders are targeting people through social media," he said, adding that oftentimes it starts with a friend request from someone they don't know.

The criminals, though, will often become friends with a person and send friend requests to people the victim knows. Those friends, believing the culprit is a mutual friend on social media, may then also be targeted.

He says oftentimes, the profiles submitting the friend requests are not what they seem.

"They've created these fake user profiles of these young very attractive women," he said. "All of a sudden the conversations turn sexualized, and then they go and request some sort of naked photo or naked video."

Then they threaten to share those photos unless the victim pays up, experts say.

"The criminals are smart, they're going to use Bitcoin or some other form of currency because of the challenges of tracing it back to them," said D'Ovidio.

"It's not something that a lot of people might think of. Like it might not happen to you, but it's definitely something that this generation has to be wary of," said Benjamin Meredith, a junior at the University of Delaware.

The university released a statement to Action News that reads in part, "The University of Delaware Police has offered available resources to the victim and is actively investigating the incident."

"We generally see that these groups are setting up overseas so it's very difficult for law enforcement to deal with it," said D'Ovidio.

He added that there are ways to protect yourself.

"If you don't know the person, don't let them into your social circle online," he said.

As far as the compromising photos, D'Ovidio advised, "If you're not comfortable with your parents or grandparents seeing the image of the video, it's a good idea not to take it and definitely not to send it."

He added that anyone who is victimized to never pay the ransom.

"My recommendation is never to pay the extortion," he said. "Once they know you're willing to pay they're going to keep coming back and coming back and coming back."