ABC News' Mara Schiavocampo reports:

Blogger Melissa Esplin, of Salt Lake City, has more than 3,000 photos online - charming images of her calligraphy, craft projects and many more innocent pictures of herself.

But two weeks ago, the married mother of two young children woke up to find that her perfectly PG pictures were being used in a very X-rated way.

"It infuriated me and sent me into a panic. I was angry that people would think that that person was me," Esplin, 29, told ABC News.

Some of the totally appropriate photos from Esplin's blog had been stolen and posted on a porn site next to very graphic images of someone else's body. But that's not all that was on the site. Esplin's name, the city she lines in and a link to her Facebook page were all there too. She immediately started getting bombarded with messages from strange men.

Some messages said, "You're pretty, those pictures were really interesting. I'd like to get to know you more," Esplin said. "Then some got considerably more graphic."

Then, the second shock. Esplin says she was the target of attempted cyber-extortion, and that the site would only take the images down if she agreed to pay $400.

"Really? Like I would pay someone $400. Who knows what they would have done with my credit card information," Esplin said. "I'm one of many women who are extorted on this site every day."

Posting photos online is easier and more popular than ever, with millions of people sharing selfies and other personal pics on sites like Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

Experts say what happened to Esplin could happen to anyone, and events like this are more common than ever.

"The internet is hard to control," former FBI agent Brad Garrett explained. "And there's not much you can do once your pictures are misused."

Experts say prevention is key. They suggest limiting what you post online and who can see it through your profile privacy settings, ultimately protecting your pictures and your reputation.

Esplin says the page with her stolen pictures has been viewed more than 60,000 times since being posted. Though she says she filed a complaint with the FBI, that adult website is registered in another country, so at this point, she's done all that she can short of paying the extortion fee, which she understandably refuses to do.