Security News
Tech support companies Restoro and Reimage will pay $26 million to settle charges that they used scare tactics to trick their customers into paying for unnecessary computer repair services. "These companies used scare tactics and lies about threats to consumers' personal computers to bilk consumers, particularly older consumers, out of tens of millions of dollars," said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Today, the FBI warned about courier services being used to collect money and valuables from victims of tech support and government impersonation scams. This public service announcement follows a surge of reports regarding criminals using couriers to collect cash or precious metals like gold or silver from victims whom the scammers instructed to sell their valuables.
India's Central Bureau of Investigation raided 76 locations in a nationwide crackdown on cybercrime operations behind tech support scams and cryptocurrency fraud. The police operation, part of Operation Chakra-II, aims to dismantle cyber-enabled financial crime rings and is a collaborative effort involving international law enforcement agencies and tech companies such as Microsoft and Amazon, working alongside the Indian federal enforcement agency.
Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of an advanced fingerprinting and redirection toolkit called WoofLocker that's engineered to conduct tech support scams. The sophisticated traffic redirection scheme was first documented by Malwarebytes in January 2020, leveraging JavaScript embedded in compromised websites to perform anti-bot and web traffic filtering checks to serve next-stage JavaScript that redirects users to a browser locker.
Cybercriminals are taking their business offline in a new approach to familiar technical support scams recently identified by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a bulletin published yesterday, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center says it's noticed a recent uptick in technical support scams across the US that, rather than urging victims to wire funds, send cryptocurrency or hand over gift card codes, is asking them to mail magazine-wrapped wads of cash.
FBI warns of a surge in tech support scams targeting the elderly across the United States and urging victims to dispatch cash concealed within magazines or similar items through shipping firms. While tech support scams have been around for years, the FBI says this is a departure from scammers' conventional tactics of soliciting their targets to send money using bank transfers, cryptocurrencies, or gift cards.
An ongoing malvertising campaign is injecting ads in the Microsoft Edge News Feed to redirect potential victims to websites pushing tech support scams. App subdomains to host their scam pages within a single day.
A massive shortfall in PC availability, lack of login for secure IT systems, disjointed IT systems and a desperate attempt to fall back onto printed paper methods all contributed to chaotic scenes at the newly merged Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, according to written testimony put before Parliament today. "On the evening of Saturday 21 August, the soldiers were issued one FCDO computer for every two soldiers. These did not work because FCDO IT had not issued the passwords to unlock them. These computers were finally unlocked on the afternoon of Sunday 22 August. Until this, the soldiers worked with one computer shared between roughly eight people," said former desk officer Raphael Marshall in his evidence [PDF] to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry on Government Policy on Afghanistan.
The latest findings show tech support scams, which often arrive as a pop-up alert convincingly disguised using the names and branding of major tech companies, have become the top phishing threat to consumers. Tech support scams are expected to proliferate in the upcoming holiday season, as well as shopping and charity-related phishing attacks.
Tech support scams work because they try to trick people into believing there's a serious security crisis with their computers, says Norton Labs. The tech support ruse was the number one scam described by Norton Labs in its new October Consumer Cyber Safety Pulse Report.