“Forty-one percent of adults report experiencing some form of online bullying….21.6% of sixth to 12th graders who reported being bullied at school, reported the abuse as cyberbullying.”

These statistics are from Kodie Ruzicka, who has spent 16 years as an FBI Intelligence Analyst. She has traveled the world working in terrorism and crimes against children. She visited Cottonwood Heights June 9, to discuss some of the new and prevalent dangers emerging online. 

“This is such an important topic with all the technology that’s in our hands every day,” said Cottonwood Heights Councilmember Shawn Newell. 

Specifically, she explained the current online environment to parents and grandparents, letting them know what to watch out for in order to keep their young ones safe. 

“The nontraditional means of exploiting kids through these technologies are advancing at a pretty rapid pace.” Ruzicka began. “The number one place to target/recruit kids are from eating disorder and LGBTQIA+ groups.” 

Her presentation was broken down into six main categories of generalized online crimes targeting kids: sextortion, gore groups, gaming in the metaverse, cyberbullying, social media and fraud schemes. 

“....There are creepers literally everywhere,” Ruzicka said. 

Sextortion is one of the more common forms of online criminal activity and it’s on the rise. “It’s another version of a fraud or swindle, but it has a particularly menacing and terrible outcome because it targets minors and because of how insidious the outcome can be in the end,” Ruzicka said. 

Take It Down is a free service that can help remove or stop the online sharing of nude or explicit images. (Photo courtesy of TakeItDown NCMEC)

Sextortion often begins with a simple text or direct message. The conversation begins to get a little suggestive or flirty before escalating to photo sharing. Soon, the person on the other end is asking for a nude photo. 

“The second they send that nude photo the extortion starts,” Ruzicka explained how the criminal may then ask for money, gift cards or even more nude photos, depending on motivation. 

The criminal will often share the detailed information they’ve found on their target including name, school, home address and social media accounts. If they don’t comply with their request, the criminal will threaten to leak that nude photo with friends, coworkers, parents, parents’ friends, etc. 

“These people are really well trained in psychological warfare and high pressure sales,” Ruzicka said. “They tell them ‘your parents are never going to trust you again and you might as well kill yourself.’”

Because of this, Ruzicka encourages parents to instill in their kids that there is nothing they can do that is worth their life.

When she talks to teenagers, Ruzicka drives home the message that there is nothing someone cannot come back from. It’s not the end. 

She encourages anyone who finds themselves sextorted to not try to resolve it themselves, ask for help and/or go to law enforcement and to be prepared for images to be leaked (because even if they’re not your own, the criminal can use deepfakes to put someone’s face on someone else’s nude body). Ruzicka’s noticed that in most cases of sextortion, images get online at some point, no matter what the outcome is. 

Beyond sextortion, Ruzicka believes gore groups to be one of the most insidious forms of online harassment out there. 

Stemming from white supremacist ideology, the main objective of gore groups is to accelerate the downfall of society so they can rebuild into a white nationalist mecca. Members of these gore groups believe the quickest way to get society to collapse into violent anarchy is to get vulnerable and young people to engage in horrific behavior. The most common of which include CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) production, animal cruelty, swatting, doxing and extortion. 

“It’s literally just for the glory,” Ruzicka said. “They get glory by recruiting as many kids as they can and getting them to do terrible things in their name.” 

Ruzicka provided a brief overview of these terms. Doxing (or doxxing) is leaking someone’s personal information across the internet. Ruzicka mentioned the FBI sees a lot of this with military personnel. Swatting is getting the SWAT team to show up at a target’s house. For example, criminals can make it look like a bomb threat call is coming from their target’s house. Ruzicka mentioned that swatting is most common when a member of a gore group is attempting to leave. 

Once involved in a gore group, members are often pressured to recruit new members themselves and encourage young and vulnerable members to engage in similarly criminal behaviors. 

“Oftentimes, the victims become the perpetrators. That becomes very complicated because we have kids committing heinous crimes but they were victims,” Ruzicka said. “How do we hold people accountable when they were the perpetrator because they were trying to get out of being victims themselves?” 

“If you think this is stuff that’s just hiding on the dark web, it’s not. It’s easy to find,” Ruzicka mentioned Instagram, Discord and Reddit as examples. 

Ruzicka emphasized that she does not want anyone going to actively look for this content. But, if you happen to come across it, keep in mind that these are real people who need help. The content should be reported (information below). 

Moving onto fraud schemes, Ruzicka explained how online tactics are quickly evolving with the help of AI. 

“Con artists have been around since the dawn of time. We just have a better tools now to make it a lot easier to get a lot more people,” she said. “You can be anywhere in the world and write an email that sounds like you’re the person next door.”  

Some of the newer fraud schemes appearing online include: emails or text messages with alerts of an unpaid toll or ticket; shopping scams for fashionable items; social media quizzes; and in-game purchases. All of these schemes are strictly after credit card or bank account information  not necessarily the $10 that might get paid. 

“Financial aid is a big scam right now because a financial aid application asks for literally all of your information,” Ruzicka said. “It gives them the ability to steal your mortgage. It’s terrifying what they can do with a financial aid application.”

For anyone applying for financial aid (or helping their young ones apply for financial aid for college), she recommends only filling out applications that are directly from the school or through FAFSA. 

“Biometrics are not as safe as you think,” Ruzicka also warned. She shared how a research group in Australia was able to satisfy biometrics security to get into bank accounts…using AI. 

Ruzicka emphasized the importance of reporting online content, even if there’s embarrassment or shame. 

“To the people who get victimized — they saw you coming from a mile away. They studied you, they looked at your social media, they knew what you liked and didn’t like, they knew what you cared about.” 

If you know of CSAM content that needs to be scrubbed from the internet, visit www.takeitdown.ncmec.org. 

If you come across online content that needs to be reported, either call local police, call the FBI’s toll-free number at 1-800-225-5324 (800-CALL-FBI), or report online to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov). 

“We would much rather prevent a crime than respond to one,” Ruzicka said.