Web Fraud 2.0

IndependentKrebs

Pakistani Firm Shipped Fentanyl Analogs, Scams to US

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 07 May 2025 22:22:48 +0000

A Texas firm recently charged with conspiring to distribute synthetic opioids in the United States is at the center of a vast network of companies in the U.S. and Pakistan whose employees are accused of using online ads to scam westerners seeking help with trademarks, book writing, mobile app development and logo designs, a new investigation reveals.

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IndependentKrebs

China-based SMS Phishing Triad Pivots to Banks

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2025 15:31:58 +0000

China-based purveyors of SMS phishing kits are enjoying remarkable success converting phished payment card data into mobile wallets from Apple and Google. Until recently, the so-called “Smishing Triad” mainly impersonated toll road operators and shipping companies. But experts say these groups are now directly targeting customers of international financial institutions, while dramatically expanding their cybercrime infrastructure and support staff.

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IndependentKrebs

How Phished Data Turns into Apple & Google Wallets

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:37:26 +0000

Carding — the underground business of stealing, selling and swiping stolen payment card data — has long been the dominion of Russia-based hackers. Happily, the broad deployment of more secure chip-based payment cards in the United States has weakened the carding market. But a flurry of innovation from cybercrime groups in China is breathing new life into the carding industry, by turning phished card data into mobile wallets that can be used online and at main street stores.

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IndependentKrebs

How Phished Data Turns into Apple & Google Wallets

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2025 18:37:26 +0000

Carding — the underground business of stealing, selling and swiping stolen payment card data — has long been the dominion of Russia-based hackers. Happily, the broad deployment of more secure chip-based payment cards in the United States has weakened the carding market. But a flurry of innovation from cybercrime groups in China is breathing new life into the carding industry, by turning phished card data into mobile wallets that can be used online and at main street stores.

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IndependentKrebs

Infrastructure Laundering: Blending in with the Cloud

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:10:08 +0000

In an effort to blend in and make their malicious traffic tougher to block, hosting firms catering to cybercriminals in China and Russia increasingly are funneling their operations through major U.S. cloud providers. Research published this week on one such outfit — a sprawling network tied to Chinese organized crime gangs and aptly named “Funnull” — highlights a persistent whac-a-mole problem facing cloud services.

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IndependentKrebs

Chinese Innovations Spawn Wave of Toll Phishing Via SMS

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 21:18:48 +0000

Residents across the United States are being inundated with text messages purporting to come from toll road operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll fee remains unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new features added to a popular commercial phishing kit sold in China that makes it simple to set up convincing lures spoofing toll road operators in multiple U.S. states.

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IndependentKrebs

A Day in the Life of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2025 23:41:53 +0000

Besieged by scammers seeking to phish user accounts over the telephone, Apple and Google frequently caution that they will never reach out unbidden to users this way. However, new details about the internal operations of a prolific voice phishing gang show the group routinely abuses legitimate services at Apple and Google to force a variety of outbound communications to their users, including emails, automated phone calls and system-level messages sent to all signed-in devices.

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IndependentKrebs

How to Lose a Fortune with Just One Bad Click

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2024 13:17:59 +0000

Adam Griffin is still in disbelief over how quickly he was robbed of nearly $500,000 in cryptocurrencies. A scammer called using a real Google phone number to warn his Gmail account was being hacked, sent email security alerts directly from google.com, and ultimately seized control over the account by convincing him to click “yes” to a Google prompt on his mobile device.

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