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:
- Poland detains three Ukrainians over possession of hacking equipment
December 8, 2025
A Polish court has ordered three Ukrainian nationals held on charges of computer fraud and possessing hardware and software designed to commit crimes, including a suspected attempt to damage IT data deemed crucial to national defence. The three men, aged 43, 42 and 39, were detained after a roadside check in Warsaw, Polish state news agency ...
- New Prompt Injection Attack Vectors Through MCP Sampling
December 5, 2025
This article examines the security implications of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) sampling feature in the context of a widely used coding copilot application. MCP is a standard for connecting large language model (LLM) applications to external data sources and tools. We show that, without proper safeguards, malicious MCP servers can exploit the sampling feature for ...
- International takedown of cryptocurrency fraud network laundering over EUR 700 million
December 4, 2025
The final actions in a sweeping international operation have successfully dismantled a large-scale cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering network that had laundered over EUR 700 million. Coordinated across multiple jurisdictions, these actions, carried out last month and earlier this week, mark the culmination of years of investigation and the effective disruption of a criminal operation ...
- Hook for Gold: Inside GoldFactory’s Сampaign That Turns Apps Into Goldmines
December 3, 2025
In February 2024, Group-IB uncovered sophisticated mobile threat campaigns that show how fast banking malware is evolving across the Asia-Pacific region. Ongoing monitoring of this evolving threat revealed a surge of aggressive mobile Trojans targeting both iOS and Android users, all operated by a single threat actor tracked as GoldFactory. Since releasing our initial report, we ...
- Fintech firm Marquis alerts dozens of US banks and credit unions of a data breach after ransomware attack
December 3, 2025
Fintech company Marquis is notifying dozens of U.S. banks and credit unions that they had customer data stolen in a cyberattack earlier this year. Details of the cyberattack emerged this week after Marquis filed data breach notices with several U.S. states confirming its August 14 incident as a ransomware attack. Texas-based Marquis is a marketing and compliance ...
- Attackers have a new way to slip past your MFA
December 3, 2025
Attackers are using a tool called Evilginx to steal session cookies, letting them bypass the need for a multi-factor authentication (MFA) token. Researchers are warning about a rise in cases where this method is used against educational institutions. Evilginx is an attacker-in-the-middle phishing toolkit that sits between you and the real website, relaying the genuine sign-in ...