ASACP Under Attack
 

Once again the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has become the target of a well-executed series of attacks – most likely by organized crime. The attacks appear to be an effort to discredit ASACP and to frighten innocent people.

These attacks against ASACP are currently in the form of spam emails sent by bot networks designed to trick people into receiving a message that their IP address has been reported to ASACP for searching/downloading suspected child pornography. Bot networks are computer systems infected with malicious software that allows an individual to control a vast network of computers without the knowledge of the computers owners. These bot networks can be used to carry out denial of service attacks against websites, send vast quantities of spam email, and even host illegal content. ASACP would like to remind everyone that having a good, up-to-date, anti-virus security suite installed is the best way to guard against your computer becoming part of a bot network.

“We wish to make everyone aware that ASACP does not investigate individuals, only suspected child pornography websites and never, under any circumstances, initiates such contacts. Our mode of operation is detailed on the ‘About ASACP’ page,” stated ASACP CEO Joan Irvine.

If you receive a suspicious email, IM communication or message on a website purporting to come from ASACP, please forward it to ASACP at [email protected]

ASACP has added an explanation for the public to the CP reporting page (http://www.asacp.org/index.php?content=report) and alerted the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

More recently ASACP learned that its email server IP address had been placed on the Barracuda black list. Thanks to the prompt action of ASACP’s hosting company, ASACP was removed from this list.

While it is impossible to determine the exact source, ASACP Technology and Forensic Research Director Tim Henning believes that it likely originates with the very criminals the organization strives to shut down.

"CP operators would like nothing better than to hinder our operations," said Henning, who has overseen ASACP's online CP reporting hotline for well over 13 years and also participates in the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography. "The work we do helps stop them from making money from child pornography. Obviously, the efforts of ASACP, other hotlines, and the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography have been very effective."

About ASACP

Founded in 1996, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating child pornography from the Internet. ASACP battles child pornography through its CP reporting hotline, and by organizing the efforts of the online adult industry to combat the heinous crime of child sexual abuse. ASACP also works to help parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate material online.

ASACP provides an online hotline for web surfers and webmasters to report suspected child pornography. Our many member sites provide links to this hotline, which receives thousands of reports every month.

ASACP investigates these reports and determines the hosting, billing, IP address, ownership, and linkage of suspected CP sites. ASACP then forwards Red Flag reports to the appropriate government agencies and associations. These include the FBI and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as well as European hotlines. We also notify ISPs and payment processors when their hosting and billing services are hijacked by CP operators.

ASACP's Approved Member program for adult sites offers a model of effective self-regulation for the online adult industry. Approved Member sites are required to comply with our Code of Ethics.

ASACP has established Best Practices for members, which are recommended not just for adult sites, but also for search engines, billing and hosting companies, dating sites, and others.

ASACP created the RTA ("Restricted to Adults") label to better enable parental filtering, and to demonstrate the online adult industry's commitment to helping parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate content.

ASACP keeps its members informed on current laws and regulations pertaining to child pornography and child protection, as well as new and pending legislation.

ASACP works to educate and inform its members, the online adult industry, government policy makers, and the public about issues related to child protection, illegal online activities, and the efforts of the online adult industry to battle child sexual abuse.

fucked!!!

Hope you put that on your website as well.

That's crazy, Tim. Hope all is well for you!

This just goes to show you how coward the steps the people behind the CP takes to try to silence one of the best ways to combat CP.

Cudos to ASACP to have the technical knowhow to fight back!

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

PS. I urge ALL MEMBERS OF THIS COMMUNITY to ALSO SPONSOR ASACP and FIGHT Child Pornography. :2 cents::thumbsup Be the best of who you are and step up! :action-sm

Thats just insane. WTF is going on with this world

OMG.. This is just wrong... Good luck with this issue Tim :)

Bump for more readers.

what's benefits they will get on attacking ASACP ?

perhaps they think ,ASACP can be silenced ? Keep up the good work Tim:thumbsup

As I learned in Barcelona at the EU ASACP meeting, CP is not the only thing that is a threat out there, often times CP is just a front for more malicious crimes like credit card fraud, where there is even bigger money at stake. Makes sense that organized crime wants to take ASACP down since they go after not only the CP offenders but their support and funding channels as well.

Good luck Tim in fighting this, know that you have our support, and we know ASACP is in good hands with you behind the technical wheel.

This is not the first time ASACP has been attacked. We've been hit with several in the past. The first time we got hit I wondered the same thing but really it's for several reasons. It diverts our limited resources by having to deal with this issue, it overloads staff email with email from scared people, and most importantly it can damage the reputation of ASACP and hurt our mission.

That is the lowest of lows. I can appreciate the announcement here, but how are you getting the same message out to all the people being hit by the mail? It seems like an impossible task.

Woah, boggles the mind.

Thanks everyone for the support we all very much appreciate it! :thumbsup

PSD CSS XHTML, yes it really is daunting when something like this happens and you have to remember that only a portion of the people who receive the emails write in to ask for an explanation. We have set operating procedures for this kind of thing and one of the goals is to do everything we can to get the word out to those people who received the email. One of those steps is to reply to each and every one of those that contact us if at all possible. This obviously depends on the volume of email we receive but we do our absolute best to get back to everyone eventually. We also put a notice on our home page and reporting page as well as a press release.

I'm happy to share our procedures for this here if it can help any of you out in the future if you get hit with something.

In the event of an attack the following procedures need to be implemented as soon as is practical and possible.

Once the attack is discovered try to detail all aspects of the attack for site notice, press release and FBI. What is the nature and purpose(s) of the attack? How large is the attack?

Depending on the nature of the attack contact hosting provider for support/technical information.

Post notice to the site explaining that this is an attack. This notice should remain in place for a minimum of 5 days after the attack ends.

Write press release detailing the specifics of the attack. Post to site and send to members and trade publications.

Monitor industry boards for posts regarding the attack and respond as necessary. Length of time to monitor boards depends on the severity of the attack.

Respond to all email inquiries in the order they were received, in as timely a fashion as possible. (depending on the volume this may be virtually impossible but it is important to respond to as many as is practicle/possible)

Contact FBI Cyber Crime Unit.

Report to Internet Crime Complaint Center http://www.ic3.gov/ (IC3) .

Report to the FTC [email protected]

Check the Blacklists.

Notes: There may be other secondary procedures depending on the nature and purpose(s) of the attack that would be prudent to follow up on. Examples may include; virus attachments and phishing email. Please see http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm

yup:2 cents:

Insane and evil. Especially the diversion and all that extra work it causes that would be better served against the exploitation of kids...

It would be sweet to see any spammer/phisher get caught, but these guys especially.

:D

Hope you guys are able to get a handle on it soon. Here's a bump for the good guys, on the front lines!

It is called a "Joe Job" or reputation attack.

I had the same shit happened to me 3-4 months ago. Good luck. You'll need it.

I will say it is nice to see YOUR host stand behind you on this issue and help you get it resolved. I was not so lucky, and ended up losing assets because of it. Costing me into the mid $XX,XXX.00.

:disgust

Very sad what some people will do.. Hope you get it sorted and best of luck to you guys

This makes me sick to my stomach..

Stay on em Tim!!!!
Looking forward to our annual Mararitta at Internext.

that's just sick

Thanks Jimmi,

Looking forward to it!

It doesn't get much more malicious than selling videos/photos of children being raped.

yeah thats what I was thinking

And what host would this be?

sounds like just a case of spammers using a fake complaint to trick people into buying their "cookie cleaner" or similar garbage.

Bump for the cause.

What's a Mararitta?

:D

Hey SmokeyTheBear, wish that were the case, lol. No this was designed to frighten innocent people and damage our reputation. It does not involve spam for commercial gain.

That's fucked up for sure.

:(

It seems to be what you and I order after a few too many :)

no offense but this is funny, you claiming "organized crime" is sending out spam in this manner

then why would organized crime be involved. Sorry it doesnt add up. asacp isnt a household name either so.. theres more to the story here. spammers dont spam without profit, organized crime doesnt do anything without profit, that rules out both of them, doesnt even make sense that cp people were doing it because it puts a target on them and doesnt help them at all. sounds more like a disgruntled employee or stunt. Could also be they have an embedded image hidden in the email to validate usesable email addy's

can you post a full example of one of these emails with all headers included.?

bump for awareness, keep fighting the good fight. :thumbsup

Hey SmokeyTheBear,

It actually does add up but many have not followed ASACP's efforts over the past few years and also are not aware of how commercial cp operates and originates. Over 90% of commercial cp originates from organized crime centered in Russia, the RBN (Russian Business Network) aka Russian mob. ASACP runs one of the busiest hotlines in the world and receives 7 to 10 thousand raw reports per month. We also participate on the FCACP (Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography) which is headed up by NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). I participate on the Information Flow and Technology Challenges Working Groups and have also participated on special investigations along with major financial institutions such as Master Card. The goal of the FCACP has been to stamp out commercial child pornography by cutting off their access to legitimate billing solutions. This has been very successful over the past couple of years and due to these efforts the numbers of commercial cp websites online has dropped by more than two thirds. Those that are still operating are charging a much higher price point than in the past and have had to turn to much more convoluted methods for billing.

One of the topics that came up at the last FCACP meeting that I attended in Washington in June was that some members had been receiving threats and had had other similar types of scams being perpetrated against them.

http://www.asacp.org/index.php?content=news&item=721

As crazy at it may sound to those that do not deal with these issues every day, it seems these efforts have made enough of an impact to cause some retaliation.

This particular criminal organization is also known for many other internet based criminal activities which have also been linked to their commercial cp operations.

"Hey SmokeyTheBear,

Forgot to respond to this...

"Sorry it doesnt add up. asacp isnt a household name either so"

While I don't think that any organization that fights cp is a "household name", as many never run accross such material, ASACP is certainly up there in the circles of child protection. I've met many who have never heard of NCMEC and they are the government funded national clearing house for cp.

Just do a Google search for "report child porn", "report child pornography", "report cp" or any similar search and see who comes up at the top. btw we do not pay Google for this.

At any rate the purpose of this post was simply to inform the industry that this attack is occuring. I never said it was them, only that I beleive it is, based upon my experience and the information that is currently available to me.

"While it is impossible to determine the exact source, ASACP Technology and Forensic Research Director Tim Henning believes that it likely originates with the very criminals the organization strives to shut down."

i've always said - forgot all the drama and shit you hear about the ASACP, think about this.

If they prevented or saved just ONE child from sexual abuse or continued sexual abuse - JUST ONE - JUST ONE KID- it's worth every penny of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been poured into them from their start.

I honestly believe the ASACP though their efforts has literally saved hundreds of children how from hell - if not thousands.

Keep up the good work folks :)

i think you misunderstand the comment. How does false accusation hurt you or help "them"

i fail to see your point. do a search for "nude leapfrog" look who comes up on top.
i didn't say it wasn't them either , just saying the method used sounds more like spammers not someone with some purpose.

There are alot of smart people on gfy , it would prob do you a great service to use the resources available to you.

i.e. post an example of one of the emails with full headers would be a start, cant see any harm in it , has anyone else gotten any of these emails , post one here with full headers, lets do some digging.