California is taking new steps to fight against the involuntary posting of nude images online, a practice sometimes known as "revenge porn."

The state's attorney general, Kamala Harris, said at a press conference today that her office has put together a resource hub to help the victims of what she calls "cyber exploitation," and she hopes it will be a model for other states.

The hub includes a best practice guide for tech companies to help them stifle the sharing of such images. It also includes a how-to guide for victims to walk them through the process of having images removed from social media sites and online search engines.

Harris said her office has met with several large Internet companies over the past year, including Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and Google, asking them to put policies in place that allow for removal of "cyber exploitation" images. Google and Microsoft have both agreed to remove such images from their search engines, Harris said. Facebook and Twitter have also updated their policies.

She's asking for the California legislature to pass additional laws as well. AB 1310 would allow state lawyers to prosecute exploitation suspects in the victims' jurisdiction, while SB 676 gives law enforcement "a process for seizing and destroying cyber exploitation images."

"They’ve already been embarrassed, and many of them have described to us severe depression and suicidal thoughts," said Harris, describing the victims of the crime. "They’ve lost job and employment opportunities."

Also speaking at the press conference was Danielle Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland who has interviewed more than 50 exploitation victims and worked with Harris' office on the new measures. Some victims had their images posted together with contact information, Citron said, making them fear for their physical safety.

"They were terrified that strangers would confront them in person," she said. "They moved; some changed their names; all were distraught. The fallout was devastating.”

Involuntary porn affects all genders, but Harris cited recent studies her office has looked at indicating that 90 percent of victims are women and girls.

The office is using the term "cyber exploitation" because not all involuntary images are connected to revenge, Harris noted. Citron said she spoke to one woman who sent images to her husband serving in the military in Iraq to "maintain the intimacy of their relationship," then found the images online after she was hacked.

Harris' office is responsible for the first prosecution against a "cyber exploitation operator," the case against Kevin Bollaert, which resulted in Bollaert getting a sentence of eight years in prison and 10 years of supervised release. Bollaert collected about 10,000 involuntary nude images, put them up at his website uGotPosted.com, then charged victims $250 a pop to get them off the site. Investigators said he made about $30,000 this way.

"There will be severe punishment for the offenders of these crimes," Harris said today. "We should also focus on what we can do to prevent the crime from occurring in the first place."