>> reporter: the fbi suspected a friend of hers, jared abraham, her high school classmate.eaded guilty to three counts of ex-portion and one count of unauthorized computer access and last month in march he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. if something like this happens to some other girl out there getting an e-mail saying i have photos of you, what does she do? >> please talk to somebody. that is my biggest advice, is to tell somebody. to tell somebody who can help you. >> reporter: cassidy now speaks publicly about her case hoping awareness will keep it from happening to too many others. kate snow, nbc news, new york. >> kate will have more of the story on a special new year's edition of "dateline" called "starting over," immediately following this program. >> tonight, close encounters you don't want to miss. >>> stuart scott has died. he was familiar to sports fan as the long-time anchor of "sportscenter" and sports energy on espn. he helped reinvent the language of sports, and punctuating his word as boo-yah. he would use the expression as cool as the other side of

. >> reporter: the fbi suspect eded a friend of hers jared abraham, charges with extortion and computerss and last month in march he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. >> and if something happens to some other girl out there getting an e-mail saying i have photos of you, what does she do? >> please talk to somebody. that is my biggest advice is to tell somebody. to tell somebody who can help you. >> reporter: cassidy now speaks publicly about her case hoping awareness will keep it happening from others. kate snow nbc news new york. >> kate will have more of the story on a special new year's edition of dateline called starting over immediately following this program. >> tonight, close ♪ ah, push it. ♪ ♪ ♪ push it. ♪ ♪ p...push it real good! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ow! ♪ ♪ oooh baby baby...baby baby. ♪ if you're salt-n-pepa, you tell people to push it. ♪ push it real good. ♪ it's what you do. ♪ ah. push it. ♪ if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance you switch to geico. it's what you do. ♪ ah. push it. ♪ i'm pushing. i'm pushing it real good! ♪[ soft holiday music ]♪ can you help m

his name was jared abrahams and he had been her classmate.ns of miles away, it's not. >> no. >> it's a guy that went to your high school. >> and that's the creepiest part. the creepiest part is he was so close to me and we were in the same school. he was probably in the hallways. >> cassidy's hacker confessed everything and said he slaved more than 100 computers. >> horribly uncomfortable face-to-face with people and this is the one area of my life where i'm comfortable. >> but the hacker's defense attorney said abrahams was no computer whiz, so how had the teenager managed to victimize so many people. >> jared was teaching himself to be a hacker. >> investigators found out cassidy's hacker made several visits to a website where people cannot only swap tips how to slave computers, they can buy and sell computer slaves. >> he was asking and then asking more questions and asking more questions and interestingly, people kept helping him. >> later, he boasted about cassidy, the model he had snared. it just seems crazy to me people would be openly

the person responsible wasn't a stranger but former high school classmate jared abrahams.count of unauthorized computer access. >> i'm dreading this. >> reporter: and last march, cassidy faced her fears in court to face him in court. she came out ready to put this behind her. >> you said you don't want this to define the rest of your life. >> no. >> you don't want to give him control. >> no. i want to be able to move on from this. i think i already have. >> reporter: after her year as miss teen usa, cassidy is going to college to study broadcast. she an advocate for hacking victims and work for a software company and talking at schools. >> and if something like this happens to some other girl out there. if she gets an e-mail saying i have photos of you, what does she do? >> please talk to somebody. that is my biggest advice. tell somebody. tell somebody to help you. >> reporter: for "today," kate snow nbc news. >> and you can see more of cassidy's story tomorrow night on "dateline" special called starting over here on nbc. >>> up next, how would you like to make the big bu

abrahams was so computer wiz. how had the teenager managed to victimize so many people? >> jaredr made several visits to a website where people cannot only swap tips about how to slave computers, they can also buy and sell computer slaves. >> he was asking and then asking more questions and asking more questions. and interestingly, people kept helping him. >> later, he boasted about cassidy, the model he had snared. it just seems crazy to me that people would be openly discussing this stuff right on a forum on line. do they feel like nobody's going catch them? nobody's going care? >> if you look back -- let's even take the last five years. we can count in one hand the number of cases that have actually been prosecuted. they know that. >> the former prosecutor says one obstacle to prosecuting sextortion skasz that unlike cassidy, victims are often reluctant to come forward with their stories. >> cassidy took the first step which is often the hardest which is telling somebody. >> almost a year to the day after she received that first threatening e-mail cassidy drove with her mom to