Child Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse: Understanding Adversarial Tactics Techniques and Procedures

Background: Child sexual exploitation and abuse have been an existing global phe-nomenon. However, with increasing dependency on digital transformation, mobile de-vices, and the internet, the emphasis has shifted to child online sexual exploitation and abuse (COSEA), leading to an exponential growth of perpetrators. A 2020 report indi-cated a 200% increase in child sex abuse forums that are linked to the internet. Existing literature has emphasized child protection challenges, online attacks, and using surveys and questionnaires to gather and draw inferences regarding grooming tactics and the-matic analysis. Social Issues, such as the lack of reporting platforms, limited sharing of threat information, cyber awareness, and social engagement and support, pose serious challenges for children, parents, and law enforcement. Several papers exist that have used the term Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA). However, our paper considers Child Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (COSEA) as we explore and look at it from the challenges of a child going online and accessing the internet.
Methods: The paper explores COSEA challenges and examines how perpetrators deploy MITRE Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) against victims to understand attack motives and establish potential attributions for cyber threat intelligence gathering and cyber profiling. The paper acknowledges existing research by considering the changing threat landscape and the evolving attack surface. It aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on adversarial TTPs and current trends, and to understand the threat actor’s mindset and motives.
Results: The results demonstrate that analyzing TTPs facilitates the establishment of attributions and the determination of the adversary’s intents, motives, opportunities, and methods. The novelty contributions of this research are threefold. First, we explore existing challenges in online child abuse and exploitation by identifying and discussing what constitutes child abuse and exploitation, how COSEA manifests, and the attack methods used by perpetrators to exploit their victims. Secondly, we used the MITRE TTP and subjective judgment approach to identify the TTPs and determine how these factors make the child complicit. Finally, we discuss the strategies required to address the challenges and the stakeholder role in mitigating COSEA
Conclusion: The paper has considered TTPs from a technical perspective to understand the perpetrator’s motives. The paper considers factors that could influence the victim, such as money, societal norms, and deterrence, including education, laws, regulations, and recommendations for threat information-sharing platforms and collaborations among stakeholders.