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This week recognizes internet safety with Safer Internet Day serving as a reminder to protect your privacy and information. No matter what time of year, it is important for people to know strategies to avoid falling victim to crimes and to inform loved ones about protecting their online identity.
In 2025, cybercrime cost the world over $10 trillion — with that number expected to rise in 2026. Many scammers are targeting everyday people who, with the click of a button, could lose important privacy information and financial savings.
Experts from Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice at the College of Social Science are available to comment on various forms of cybercrime and digital threats, including the following topics:
Karen Holt is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice. Her research focuses on sexual deviance, sexual offending and sexually motivated violence. She can comment on nudification apps and sextortion, a term that combines the words “sexual” and “extortion” to refer to a form of online blackmail where someone threatens a victim by sharing nude or sexually explicit images unless they comply with demands.
Contact: holtkar1@msu.edu
“The impacts of being ‘nudified’ are just as devastating as revenge pornography or nonconsensual intimate image sharing. For people who have had their images altered, it doesn’t matter if it is real or if it was generated by AI. They still report it has devastating effects, including feelings of guilt and shame, after their image was used in a deep fake.
“If your photos were altered, make sure to note where they were shared and who shared them, and then share that information with law enforcement and the Better Business Bureau. You also can share this information with the Federal Trade Commission, since there are laws that can help you get your images taken down.
“For parents, it is important to ask questions and be curious. If you start conversations now, it will make the harder conversations easier to have if something does happen. You can start these conversations by asking your kids if they have heard of these apps and how they would like to be supported if they were ever a victim. However, it is also important to have conversations about using nudification apps as a perpetrator. Talk to them about respect, privacy and empathy.”
Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice. Her research focuses on the psychosocial factors associated with cybercrime, specifically on grooming and online child sex offenders. She can comment on online grooming and how to talk about internet safety with your children.
Contact: drkate@msu.edu
“When an adult is talking to a minor online, and they’re trying to engage in the grooming process, they’re going to use flattery. They will also often ask the minor to change platforms. They might start with a social media platform that is really common, like Instagram, and then ask them to move to a platform that they think is being less monitored like WhatsApp or Signal. So, it’s really important to look for those types of clues if you’re talking to a potential predator online.
“I think the best thing that a parent can do is communicate with their child so that if something does happen or if their child is suspicious that they might be chatting with somebody that they shouldn’t be, that they know they can go to a trusted adult. Somebody who is going to believe them and somebody who is not going to be upset with them because we know our kids are going to make mistakes. They might send a picture when they shouldn’t have or maybe they are using a social media platform that they are not allowed to. We want to make sure that our kids know that yes, they might have done something wrong, they might have made a mistake, but they’re not going to get in trouble for it, and that the best thing they can do is go and tell an adult.”
Cooper Maher is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice. His research focuses on online fraud victimization, victim decision-making and the association of people with disabilities and risk of victimization. He can comment on romance fraud, which centers around the fraudster building a fake emotional relationship with their victim that they can leverage to get money from their victim over time.
Contact: maherco2@msu.edu
“People who perpetrate romance fraud generally use grooming techniques. It’s not necessarily a quick, rapid ‘give me all your money now’ style of fraud. Romance frauds are characterized by the slow building of trust over time.
“If a romance fraud occurs online, there’s usually going to be an online profile, and all these online profiles have pictures. So, if you interact with someone that you think might be a romance fraudster, or a fraudster more generally, take their pictures and run them through a reverse image search tool. Search this person’s name and identity and see if they have any other corroborating profiles. If this profile is the only evidence of this person you can find online, if this is their only digital footprint, that’s definitely a big red flag.”
Taylor Fisher is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice. She can answer questions related to cyber hygiene and protecting your information online.
Contact: fishe516@msu.edu
“Checking URLs is a really easy way to make sure that you really are talking to the person that you think you are. Make sure that you don’t click on any links that come from people you don’t know or links that you don’t recognize. For example, getting a text message claiming to be Amazon that your package was delivered when you know you didn’t order anything. Fraudsters want you to click on those links and hand over really important information.
“A really important aspect of cyber hygiene is being safe when using public network access. If you go to Starbucks or to the airport, you may use public Wi-Fi. That puts you at risk because other people on that network don’t have any restrictions on reaching your network traffic. You don’t ever want to engage in important things like financial transactions on public Wi-Fi, and it’s really important if you are going to be doing important things on publicly accessible networks that you use a VPN or virtual private network to protect your data.”
Tom Holt is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice and he also serves as the director of the MSU Center for Cybercrime Investigation and Training. His research focuses on hacking, malware and the role of the internet in facilitating crime. He can comment on a host of cybercrime issues, including data breaches.
Contact: holtt@msu.edu
“We tend to think about data breaches in regard to our email accounts or our bank accounts. But remember that our kids have accounts in all kinds of systems, whether that’s Roblox, email or their school accounts. With things like PowerSchool being compromised, there’s great potential for our children’s sensitive information to be out there just as much as our own.
“Many people brush off experiencing a data breach because we’ve had so much data lost already, but it really just depends on the nature of what’s targeted. If your health care provider were to be affected in a data breach and your health information were put out into the general public, that’s a significant point of concern because you may have mental health treatment or sensitive information in your file that you don’t want anybody else to know. That could introduce stress, strain and mental fatigue. The same is true for financial harm from a data breach. If you lose several thousand dollars and you have no cushion, then suddenly that means you have economic problems that can cause depression and a whole number of other factors associated with it.”
Rachel McNealey is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice. She is also a center associate with the MSU Center for Cybercrime Investigation and Training. She can comment on the Take It Down Act, how it is aimed at combating nonconsensual intimate image sharing and the upcoming regulations on social media platforms.
Contact: mcnealey@msu.edu
“The Take It Down Act creates a federal statute by which someone can be criminally charged for creating nonconsensual images of someone that depict nudity or otherwise explicit content using AI or distributing someone’s images that demonstrate explicit content without their permission. It also expects sites that host user-generated content to have a reporting function by May of 2026, so that content will be taken down from these websites.
“If there is a nude or explicit image distributed of you that is either real or has been generated by AI, you can report it to your local police. There are laws in place that make this illegal not only at the federal level, but at the state level as well. You can go to www.ic3.gov and report there to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. There are also organizations that offer Take It Down services for photos that have been distributed without one’s consent. For adults above the age of 18, Stop NCII is a service where you can submit a known image that was distributed without consent and they will work to take it down. For anyone under the age of 18, NCMEC, which is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, also has a Take It Down service available and you can report any known content that is explicit of minors to that organization.”
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