ASACP Victim of Spoof Email

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is reporting that the nonprofit organization has become the target of a massive “spoof” email attack. The organization believes the attack is an effort to damage and discredit ASACP, which has fought online child pornography for the past 10 years.

A fake email has been received by an indeterminate number of victims and includes both a virus-laden attachment and a threatening note. The note informs the recipient that their email address has been found on a database of child pornography pay-site customers and tells them to donate money to ASACP or face legal action.

“CP operators would like nothing better than to hinder our operations,” says ASACP Compliance Director Tim Henning. “The work we do helps stop them from making money from child pornography. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do to prevent these kinds of attacks.”

Henning, who has overseen ASACP’s online CP reporting hot line for a decade, says he believes that it’s likely the attack has come from the very criminals the organization strives to shut down.

The text of the spoof email begins: “Hi! I am abuse manager of asacp.org, the organization which fights with the child pornography expansion in Internet” and appears to have been written by someone with a poor command of written English. The email includes a link to ASACP’s donation page. However, ASACP will refund any donations made under duress due to this scam.

“We’ve been targeted this way before,” says ASACP’s Executive Director Joan Irvine. “In this case, thousands or even millions of people around the world may have encountered ASACP for the first time due to this spoof email. If so, they received a false and very negative impression of us. However, we’re confident that there won’t be any lasting damage. ASACP’s long record of working to fight child sexual abuse speaks for itself.”

Anyone who received the email is encouraged to forward it with full headers to [email protected], with “Spoof Email” as the subject. This may assist ASACP in its investigation. Victims should also update their computer’s virus definitions and scan for virus infections.

The ASACP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating child pornography from the Internet; the organization battles child pornography through a CP reporting hot line and by organizing the efforts of the online adult industry to combat the crime of child sexual abuse.