With the advancement of AI, social media and payment technology the world is witnessing a staggering rise in scams, fraud and sextortion. Our experts have long been following the disturbing trend of pig butchering, but that's not the only type of fraud that targets lonely people and siphons money from them. In this article, we will go over a tactic that is starting to gain ground: E-whoring.
E-whoring scams combine several different elements: catfishing, sextortion, account takeover, and others. In general, fraudsters impersonate an attractive individual to entice users to send gifts from wish lists or even cash. Once victims send money through a digital wallet or payment app, the money is quickly transferred into the fraudster’s account, making it harder to trace and retrieve (even harder in the case of cryptocurrency.)
The scammers use their initial engagement with the victim to continue their impersonation or extort the victim for more earnings. As the “relationship” progresses, scammers also leverage their knowledge of the victim to move into more sophisticated attacks including information and identity theft or ATO (account takeover), where a bad actor uses information obtained through phishing scams, malware, or data breaches to gain control of someone else’s legitimate online account. These may include anything from financial accounts to social media profiles, continuing the cycle of crime.
Pig butchering and e-whoring target a similar victim profile, but there are differences in how the fraud is carried out. Most of these differences involve the size and scale of the crimes. Pig butchering focuses on maximizing the amounts from each victim, but the e-whoring method focuses on the number of victims. In the online fraud community, e-whoring is considered a starting position where “junior fraudsters” must ‘grind’ initially but will build funds after some time.
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Larger criminal organizations carry out pig butchering, while smaller decentralized groups and even individuals enter the sextortion field by starting with e-whoring. Rather than taking the time to establish emotional connections for big payouts, e-whoring simplifies the transaction down to the basics: one person trading nude photos or videos for quick payouts.
This is why e-whoring scammers favor P2P payment methods, which are simple, fast, and often circumvent the protections that “slow down” traditional online financial transactions through banks or credit cards.
Possibly even more than money, the currency of online crime is data. Continuing the cycle of victimization, fraudsters often revisit their victims to extort them and gain more information, including PII (personally identifiable information) and PFI (personal finance information). The fraudster can then move into selling verified accounts, which are in high demand from other bad actors who can use it to perpetrate larger schemes such as infiltrating corporate or government networks.
E-whoring is becoming more common, due to these 3 major factors:
This subreddit was created exclusively for beginners in the field:
FaaS in action: Online hacker shop offers special sale on the “beginners’ guide” on scamming
This e-whoring description reads like a job opportunity, promising “a great way to earn extra money”
The e-whoring community has created and continues to function on an entire trade eco-system of accounts (social media, payments, etc.), adult content, and other related services for fraud and sextortion. Most of the content is AI generated, stolen, or sold photos from adult content platforms such as OnlyFans.
However, e-whoring is a numbers game. Scammers must catch as many targets as possible to make money and lend their scam credibility. That’s why they often use mainstream digital payment options to streamline the process of extracting, paying out, and laundering the profits they’re generating. Since they are stealing small sums of money, they can operate without the complex structures of traditional money laundering schemes (e.g., offshore accounts or shell companies.)
The need to catch as many targets as possible, combined with the gray area of adult content streaming, creates many options to take advantage of innocent users. Many victims are too ashamed to report the fraud, or they were being extorted to keep it a secret. They may have thought they were paying an actor or actress for the images. Either way, they move on without reporting.
The money received through different payment companies can be used almost immediately, because the transactions seem legitimate and are difficult to flag. And because –whoring has a FaaS element, fraudsters can easily buy new accounts to replace the frozen ones.
Online merchant selling FaaS social media accounts used by scammers for e-whoring
Premade “e-whoring packs” available for free through Discord channels
It's no secret that digital payment platforms (including cryptocurrency exchanges) are being abused by fraudsters to exploit their payment systems. This can happen directly (facilitating payments directly from victims) or indirectly (processing payments/trade in stolen accounts for e-whoring scams).
Because fraudsters have no barriers to experimentation, they are “early adopters” who quickly learn to weaponize legitimate technology. Through AI, they gain an understanding about the mechanisms used to prevent fraud and ATO, and use this knowledge to their advantage to develop more sophisticated tactics to commit fraud.
E-whoring is also considered a gateway to even more serious crimes and more complex fraud typologies. If a small-time fraudster finds success with e-whoring, they soon level up to a whole host of fraudulent activities.
Once they have enough money, for example, they can invest in new hacking or spamming tools. They can also leverage their victims’ data through sextortion, malware, or by selling it to other fraudsters.
Conversation with FaaS merchant explaining how e-whoring became a gateway to other fraudulent activities
To address the growing threats of FaaS like e-whoring, we need to look at the main pillars of the problem.
Uncovering mule and fraudulent accounts, on social media or through a financial institution, can help provide more information about criminal networks and help prevent further abuse of products by shedding light on violating behaviors. This gives teams inside organizations a better chance of defeating constant attempts of abuse, making it harder for malicious actors and safer for normal users.
In the end, the best way to combat fraud is to combine technology, including different tools for biometric identity, and humans, who will actively look for missing pieces and learn how to identify new trends and sectors.
As AI-driven fraud continues to evolve, scams like e-whoring present an urgent challenge for the payments industry. This emerging fraud model not only exploits unsuspecting victims but also fuels a broader ecosystem of financial crime, including money laundering, sextortion, and the resale of stolen information.
The accessibility of AI tools and FaaS networks has lowered the barrier to entry for bad actors, making it easier than ever to abuse payment platforms. A combination of both human and technology is needed to intervene and disrupt this illicit activity.
With a proactive approach that combines human intelligence and the right technology, payments providers can help safeguard their platforms, protect consumers, and prevent financial crime from spreading further.
Learn more about how our team of experts leverages technology to investigate online crime, to help protect your platform.