Cybercrime is not new, and organisations across the globe have tools and systems in place to defend their networks against these crooks. However, there are far worse offenders out there. Ones that aren’t interested in stealing your money or intellectual property, they are looking to exploit children through sourcing, viewing and sharing images of child sex abuse.
Most of us like to think that these heinous individuals are the rare exception, but statistics belie this. UN figures estimate that some three quarters of a million people are looking at this content at any given time.
Francois Els, GM at ARM, the distributor of NetClean for sub-Saharan Africa, says his company has partnered with NetClean to combat child sex abuse and exploitation in South Africa.
“We will be assisting ISPs, companies, and law enforcement to stop the handling, downloading or distribution of child sexual abuse content through the distribution of NetClean’s suite of products.”
He adds that it is a disturbing fact that illicit images of children can be found in every level of society, and can occur wherever there is an Internet connection.
“The latest statistics show that one to two people in a thousand are estimated to use the computers in their workplace to view and distribute this type of material. Even more disturbing, there are approximately 5-million images involving 100 000 children in online trading networks currently, with new images created and uploaded daily. However, only 3% of these children have been identified.”
Els says that sadly, only 500 offenders are arrested per year, and each offender commits an average of 117 offenses against children before being arrested – although most are never reported. “One in three men who possess child exploitation material are found to be hands-on abusers.”
Other alarming stats include the fact that 95% of child abuse victims know their offender. Moreover, four out of five incidents of sexual abuse happen before the age of 18 years, and one in three girls, and one in five boys experience and unwanted sexual contact before they turn 18. “Worldwide that equates to 150-million girls and 75-million boys.”
He says the follow-on effect from the distribution of child exploitation is horrific. “90% of people with addictions suffered some form of child abuse, and up to 80% of prison inmates were sexually abused as children. In addition, 76% of prostitutes were abused as children and 70% of sexual abuse survivors report excessive use of drugs and alcohol.”
Els explains that it was to fight this scourge that NetClean was formed in 2003 with the idea of making use of the latest technical inventions to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material. “Today, NetClean’s products have-millions of users worldwide. Law enforcement in more than 30 countries uses NetClean Analyze to conduct their investigations.”
The company has three products – NetClean Proactive, NetClean Analyze, and NetClean WhiteBox. “NetClean ProActive is software that scans, identifies and blocks child sexual abuse images and videos in real-time. By comparing existing imagery, NetClean ProActive can stop a single photo or video, both from internet and USB devices in contrast to Web filters that only block prohibited addresses.”
The NetClean ProActive Appliance is a stand-alone appliance that blocks the access, viewing and sharing of child sexual abuse content on networks, regardless of source and network protocol.
Els says the appliance compares all images with those classified by law enforcement using the NetClean FileDNA technology to ensure that only child sexual abuse images are blocked. Its unique architecture enables it to quickly and accurately block child sexual abuse content without impacting bandwidth with the possibility to stop both the downloading and sharing of illegal files.
Secondly, the NetClean Analyze Suite is a product family especially designed for law enforcement agencies working with child sexual abuse material. “NetClean Analyze is designed to improve speed and minimise human effort when examining seized data. It enables efficient categorisation and identification of child sexual abuse images and videos, and creates a good basis for the prosecutor.”
In this way, the investigation takes less time, and the investigators themselves do not have to rely on their eyes only to examine the data. Images of abuse are identified more easily, and the general quality of the investigation is improved.
He says this is given free of charge to law enforcement agencies.
“Finally, NetClean WhiteBox is a router-based solution for blocking child sexual abuse content URLs in high performance networks without affecting the ISP-core. Available as a cloud service from NetClean or as an appliance setup, the NetClean WhiteBox System is designed for ISPs and carriers who wish to block access to Web sites containing child sexual abuse content.
“The system can be used to block unwanted Web access throughout networks or even groups of networks such as across multiple ISPs within a country or a region.”
