Inside the underground fake review trade


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:

  • Emotet One Month After the Takedown

    March 2, 2021

    2021 got off to a fantastic start for the cybersecurity community with the news that the infamous botnet Emotet had been brought down in a coordinated global operation, “Operation Ladybird.” As the first security vendor to detect and profile the Trojan all the way back in 2014, we’re particularly delighted to be seeing the back of ...

  • New South Wales’ Transport agency extorted by ransomware gang after Accellion attack

    March 1, 2021

    The transport system for the Australian state of New South Wales has suffered a data breach after the Clop ransomware exploited a vulnerability to steal files. Transport for NSW is New South Wales’ transport system in charge of the buses, ferries, regional air operators, and cargo transportation. Last week, Transport for NSW disclosed that their agency suffered ...

  • Mobile malware evolution 2020

    March 1, 2021

    In their campaigns to infect mobile devices, cybercriminals always resort to social engineering tools, the most common of these passing a malicious application off as another, popular and desirable one. All they need to do is correctly identify the application, or at least, the type of applications, that are currently in demand. Therefore, attackers constantly ...

  • World’s leading dairy group Lactalis hit by cyberattack

    March 1, 2021

    Lactalis, the world’s leading dairy group, has disclosed a cyberattack after unknown threat actors have breached some of the company’s systems. Lactalis (short for Lactalis Group) has 85,000 employees in 51 countries, and it exports dairy products to over 100 countries around the world. The dairy group controls multiple leading international brands, including Président, Galbani, Lactel, Santal, ...

  • Hackers use black hat SEO to push ransomware, trojans via Google

    March 1, 2021

    The delivery system for the Gootkit information stealer has evolved into a complex and stealthy framework, which earned it the name Gootloader, and is now pushing a wider variety of malware via hacked WordPress sites and malicious SEO techniques for Google results. Apart from increasing the number of payloads, Gootloader has been seen distributing them across ...

  • Passwords, Private Posts Exposed in Hack of Gab Social Network

    March 1, 2021

    Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a self-proclaimed “transparency collective,” claim they have received more than 70 gigabytes of data exfiltrated from social media network Gab. Gab, which touts itself as “a social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online” has drawn in various alt-right and far-right users. A hacker ...