Recently, our team exposed sophisticated scam kits designed to steal sensitive data and trick consumers. But underground marketplaces are not just for malware and stolen passwords. They also offer services designed to manipulate your opinion of the products and services you buy every day.
In our latest research, we examined cybercrime forums where sellers advertise illicit “reputation management” services. For the right price, these underground operators offer to flood a product with glowing, five-star ratings or remove negative reviews. This shadowy industry works both ways—artificially boosting reputations and deliberately hiding legitimate complaints.
A major shift we are seeing in this space is the adoption of new technology. We also found that cybercriminals are using AI to automate these fake review campaigns. This could allow them to quickly generate realistic, human-sounding feedback in large volumes without much manual effort.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labs
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Data Breaches: A Chance for Opportunistic Scammers & What You Should Watch for
September 5, 2021
Data breaches are now part of doing business, with many companies having been affected. Data is very valuable to criminals because it is often used to commit fraudulent activities as well as to enhance the credibility of scams. Data that is stolen ranges from Social Security Numbers (SSNs) to other identification documents and payment details. Scammers ...
- Analyzing SSL/TLS Certificates Used by Malware
September 3, 2021
Malware has increasingly been making use of encryption to help hide their network traffic in recent years. This makes sense especially when one realizes that ordinary network traffic is increasingly encrypted as well. Google’s own Transparency Report notes that HTTPS traffic now makes up the vast majority of network traffic passed via the Google Chrome ...
- Conti ransomware now hacking Exchange servers with ProxyShell exploits
September 3, 2021
The Conti ransomware gang is hacking into Microsoft Exchange servers and breaching corporate networks using recently disclosed ProxyShell vulnerability exploits. ProxyShell is the name of an exploit utilizing three chained Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) that allow unauthenticated, remote code execution on unpatched vulnerable servers. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- Babuk ransomware’s full source code leaked on hacker forum
September 3, 2021
A threat actor has leaked the complete source code for the Babuk ransomware on a Russian-speaking hacking forum. Babuk Locker, also known internally as Babyk, is a ransomware operation launched at the beginning of 2021 when it began targeting businesses to steal and encrypt their data in double-extortion attacks. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- FIN7 Capitalizes on Windows 11 Release in Latest Gambit
September 3, 2021
The FIN7 financial cybercrime gang is back, delivering JavaScript backdoors using Word documents themed around the next version of Windows. That’s according to researchers at Anomali, who observed a recent campaign from the group that leveraged six different docs, all referencing “Windows 11 Alpha” – the “Insider Preview” version of the upcoming Windows 11 operating system ...
- Confessions of a ransomware negotiator: Well, somebody’s got to talk to the criminals holding data hostage
September 3, 2021
Many people outside of IT believe computers will do away with jobs, but the current ransomware plague shows that new and more curious kinds of jobs are created at least as fast. So what sort of background sets you up to talk to people holding your data for ransom? To find out, The Reg talked to ...