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:
- Lifting the veil on DeathStalker, a mercenary triumvirate
August 24, 2020
State-sponsored threat actors and sophisticated attacks are often in the spotlight. Indeed, their innovative techniques, advanced malware platforms and 0-day exploit chains capture our collective imagination. Yet these groups still aren’t likely to be a part of the risk model at most companies, nor should they be. Businesses today are faced with an array of much ...
- FBI and CISA warn of major wave of vishing attacks targeting teleworkers
August 22, 2020
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a joint security advisory on Thursday, warning about an ongoing wave of vishing attacks targeting the US private sector. Vishing, or voice phishing, is a form of social engineering where criminals call victims to obtain desired information, usually posing as ...
- DarkSide: New targeted ransomware demands million dollar ransoms
August 21, 2020
A new ransomware operation named DarkSide began attacking organizations earlier this month with customized attacks that have already earned them million-dollar payouts. Starting around August 10th, 2020, the new ransomware operation began performing targeted attacks against numerous companies. In a “press release” issued by the threat actors, they claim to be former affiliates who had made millions ...
- WannaRen ransomware author contacts security firm to share decryption key
August 19, 2020
A major ransomware outbreak hit Chinese internet users earlier this year in April. For about a week, a ransomware strain known as WannaRen made tens of thousands of victims among both home consumers and local Chinese and Taiwanese companies. Looking back, in retrospect, four months later, WannaRen’s virality can be explained due to the fact that ...
- Experian South Africa discloses data breach impacting 24 million customers
August 19, 2020
The South African branch of consumer credit reporting agency Experian disclosed a data breach on Wednesday. The credit agency admitted to handing over the personal details of its South African customers to a fraudster posing as a client. While Experian did not disclose the number of impacted users, a report from South African Banking Risk Centre (SABRIC), ...
- Threat Recap: Darkside, Crysis, Negasteal, Coinminer
August 19, 2020
In the past few weeks, we have spotted notable developments for different types of threats. For ransomware, a new family named Darkside surfaced, while operators behind Crysis/Dharma released a hacking toolkit. For messaging threats, a targeted email campaign was used to propagate Negasteal/Agent Tesla. Finally, for fileless threats, a coinminer was seen bundled with legitimate applications. Read ...