An online safety charity has issued a “public warning” about a hacking community, known as the Com, that is targeting vulnerable children for sexual abuse, self-harm and suicide. The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) said the global ecosystem was carrying out extreme exploitation, cyberbullying and violence.
The warning follows a report by the online risk consultancy Resolver in partnership with the MRF, which was founded by the family of Molly Russell, a British teenager who killed herself in 2017 after viewing harmful content online. The report describes the Com as a “loose but sprawling ecosystem of overlapping internet cultures, subcultures, behaviours, networks, groups and claimed ideologies, within a sprawling ecosystem of harm”.
“The growing threat posed by Com networks is the most chilling and urgent threat to children online today and it requires a swift and comprehensive response,” said Andy Burrows, MRF’s chief executive. “These groups prey on children’s vulnerabilities to coerce and groom girls on gaming and messaging platforms, inflicting appalling harm and cruelty including acts of self-harm, livestreamed abuse or even suicide.”
One case study involved a mentally vulnerable adult being manipulated by a Com chat group into travelling to a remote location in another country and fatally setting themself alight on a livestream. In the UK, Cameron Finnigan, 19, from Horsham, West Sussex, a member of a Com-linked group, was given a nine-year prison sentence for possessing a terrorist document and encouraging someone online to take her own life.
The report splits the Com into three interlinked groups: Sadism Com, which carries out sexual extortion and child sexual abuse; Terror Com, promoting far-right or nihilistic ideologies; and Finance Com, which hacks companies. Law enforcement agencies in the UK and US have already issued warnings about the Com, which is largely comprised of 11- to 25-year-olds.
