Curbing Online Sexual Exploitation With Cybersecurity Team Control Approach

It is no longer news that cyberbullies and criminals resort to cheap online blackmails to either extort money from hapless victims, carry out revenge porn attacks, or push them into compromised situations. 

To do this, they are often on the lookout for records of victims' nude pictures or sexually explicit videos kept without caution.

This is why the recent initiative by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons to address the rising cases of online sexual exploitation and sexual extortion in the country must be encouraged.

Information about this is contained in a statement signed and issued to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday by NAPTIP Press Officer, Vincent Adekoye.

According to a statement by the Director-General of the agency, Professor Fatima Waziri-Azi, Nigerians must rise above indiscriminate sharing of intimate content and private information, with friends and strangers while speaking before the inauguration of the Cybersecurity Response Team.

The NAPTIP Cybersecurity Response Team was set up to handle all issues relating to online exploitation. 

According to the statement, Waziri-Azi also expressed concern over the careless attitude of some persons who make inappropriate information about themselves based on their emotions and love easily accessible.

“We all know that the advent of technology has brought about unprecedented opportunities for communication and access to information which has also created new avenues for criminals to exploit people, especially vulnerable women, and children.

“We have seen incremental cases of Child Sexual Assault Materials on the internet, child pornography; sextortion, and revenge porn, and these are all forms of sexual exploitation.

“This is why as an agency we must take a proactive and collaborative approach to tackle online threats.

"So, NAPTIP in partnership with some organisations has trained 20 Officers from the HQ to guide against this menace.

“NAPTIP in partnership with International Justice Mission, Meta, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau, National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, and UNODC trained the officers on Child Sexual Exploitation Materials, Open Source & Social Media Intelligence as well as Online Investigation.

“The Cybersecurity Response Team from different units and departments is coordinated by the Head of the National Monitoring Centre and will leverage cutting-edge technology and expertise to identify perpetrators of cybercrimes within our remit.

“In addition, the unit is expected to work closely with other stakeholders in this space to enhance our collective response to cybersecurity and online exploitation challenges,” she stressed.

She said that given the constant presence of threat actors, cyberattacks against private and public organisations are inevitable and that attackers face relatively little risk compared to the potential losses that the organisations they target could suffer.

Conclusion

As the dimensions of the use of ChatGPT unfold each day, it is with concerns that the aspect of using AI to generate sexually explicit images or videos of people needs to be seriously looked into.

This is one context to the many battles to be waged by the NAPTIP's Cybersecurity Response Team.

When the ChatGPT twist is added to incremental cases of Child Sexual Assault Materials on the internet, child pornography, sextortion, and revenge porn, among all other forms of sexual exploitation, then the NAPTIP's Cybersecurity Response Team will have a lot of work to do.

It is against this backdrop that all efforts must be geared toward helping NAPTIP with accomplishing this initiative.