The report was released jointly by technology company Thorn and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) on Monday and examined more than 15 million reports made to NCMEC’s CyberTipline from 2020 to 2023.
It found that sextortion is on the rise, with an average of 812 reports of sextortion made per week to NCMEC in the last year.
The report defines sextortion as “threatening to expose sexual images of someone if they don’t yield to demands.” The report found that about two-thirds of all the reports involved demands for money.
The research noted that in the past, sextortion schemes frequently affected girls and included demands that were “sexual or relational in nature.”
However, the latest report found that most victims of financial sextortion are now boys. The report found that 90 percent of victims of financial sextortion were boys between the ages of 14 and 17.
Read more in a full report here.
