Tech giants duped into giving up data used to sexually extort minors

The fraudulently obtained data has been used to target specific women and minors, and in some cases to pressure them into creating and sharing sexually explicit material and to retaliate against them if they refuse, according to the six people. — Dreamstime/TNS

Major technology companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response to fraudulent legal requests, and the data has been used to harass and even sexually extort minors, according to four federal law enforcement officials and two industry investigators.

The companies that have complied with the bogus requests include Meta Platforms Inc, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google, Snap Inc, Twitter Inc and Discord Inc, according to three of the people. All of the people requested anonymity to speak frankly about the devious new brand of online crime that involves underage victims.