Hyas Blog | Tracking the Untrackable: How Infrastructure Intelligence is Powering the Fight Against Child Exploitation

At HYAS, we often talk about our mission to bring visibility, attribution, and proactive defense to address cyber threats, fraud, and other aspects of digital risk. But sometimes, the work we support goes even deeper, into the fight against some of the darkest and most horrific crimes imaginable: human trafficking, child exploitation, and the search for missing children. This is where infrastructure intelligence becomes more than a cybersecurity tool. It becomes a lifeline.

Infrastructure Intelligence with Purpose

HYAS Insight is traditionally used to uncover adversary infrastructure, mapping out the hidden web of domains, hosts, and digital assets that power malware, phishing campaigns, supply-chain and other attacks, even fraud, money laundering, and other malicious operations. But the same technology, the same capabilities, and the same relentless visibility can be used to unmask the anonymous and link the unlinkable in child protection cases.

Clicksafe Intelligence, a nonprofit working at the intersection of OSINT, cyber threat intelligence, and law enforcement partnerships, has been using HYAS Insight as part of their operations. Their focus: stopping predators, identifying online exploiters, and preventing child sexual abuse.

“HYAS has been an incredible partner for Clicksafe,” said Jessica Smith, President & Founder of Clicksafe Intelligence. “Their tools and expertise have helped us collect and develop intelligence across multiple platforms, games, and creators—some of which are hidden behind layers of obfuscation. This kind of information is critical in the work we do, particularly when it comes to identifying bad actors and collecting enough information to file a report with law enforcement.”

Deanonymizing the Digital Underground

Much of the content linked to online child exploitation is deliberately hidden—operating in the grey zones of gaming communities, encrypted forums, or social platforms. Site owners use tactics like registrar hopping, proxy services, and infrastructure laundering to stay hidden.

That’s where HYAS Insight stands out. By correlating DNS telemetry, passive infrastructure signals, and unique infrastructure intelligence data available only to HYAS, Clicksafe has been able to uncover connections between seemingly disparate domains and online actors—cutting through the fog of the internet to expose who’s really behind the screen.

According to Elliot Jerge, Clicksafe’s Director of Operations, HYAS has played a key role in identifying real-world links between exploitative content and registered businesses. “This information through HYAS will be useful in some operations and joint work we will be doing in the near future,” Jerge notes.  “HYAS Insight provides us data and critical intel that is difficult to obtain anywhere else.”

From Cybersecurity to Child Safety

While HYAS continues to support enterprises, governments, and law enforcement globally with proactive threat and fraud intelligence, this collaboration with Clicksafe reminds us that the power of infrastructure intelligence goes beyond risk reduction. It’s about making a difference in the real world.

Whether it’s identifying adversary command-and-control domains or linking exploitative actors across platforms, the ability to see what others can’t—and act before others do—is not just cybersecurity. It’s humanity.

We are proud to support Clicksafe Intelligence and all those on the front lines working to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Because some missions demand more than technology—they demand purpose.