The Air Force sends an alert on sextortion.
The United States Air Force has issued a warning to military personnel about online scams involving sextortion.
Sextortion happens when the victim is enticed to create revealing photos or videos of themselves and sends them to someone online posing as a potential love interest.
Money is then demanded from the person featured in the videos or photos.
They are blackmailed with threats of online publication, humiliation from posting the pictures or videos to facebook, or distributing them to the victim’s family members.
The Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force found that military personnel can be especially vulnerable targets because of the strict security requirements they are expected to uphold, and their access to classified information.
The case of a military contractor who allegedly leaked government secrets to his love interest, has yet to be settled in court.
Benjamin Pierce Bishop, a contractor for the US Pacific Command met a 27 year old Chinese national who was in the US with a student visa.
There is email evidence that he not only sent her information about war plans and nuclear weapons, but even answered her specific questions about intelligence that the US has on a particular Chinese naval asset.
