Pay Up, Or We’ll Make Google Ban Your Ads

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 14:13:06 +0000

A new email-based extortion scheme apparently is making the rounds, targeting Web site owners serving banner ads through Google’s AdSense program. In this scam, the fraudsters demand bitcoin in exchange for a promise not to flood the publisher’s ads with so much bot and junk traffic that Google’s automated anti-fraud systems suspend the user’s AdSense account for suspicious traffic.

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Does Your Domain Have a Registry Lock?

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 16:37:11 +0000

If you’re running a business online, few things can be as disruptive or destructive to your brand as someone stealing your company’s domain name and doing whatever they wish with it. Even so, most major Web site owners aren’t taking full advantage of the security tools available to protect their domains from being hijacked. Here’s the story of one recent victim who was doing almost everything possible to avoid such a situation and still had a key domain stolen by scammers.

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Phishing for Apples, Bobbing for Links

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 16:09:58 +0000

Anyone searching for a primer on how to spot clever phishing links need look no further than those targeting customers of Apple, whose brand by many measures has emerged as the most targeted. Past stories here have examined how scammers working with organized gangs try to phish iCloud credentials from Apple customers who have a mobile device that is lost or stolen. Today’s piece looks at the well-crafted links used in some of these lures.

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The Great $50M African IP Address Heist

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2019 22:31:12 +0000

A top executive at the nonprofit entity responsible for doling out chunks of Internet addresses to businesses and other organizations in Africa has resigned his post following accusations that he secretly operated several companies which sold tens of millions of dollars worth of the increasingly scarce resource to online marketers. The allegations stemmed from a three-year investigation by a U.S.-based researcher whose findings shed light on a murky area of Internet governance that is all too often exploited by spammers and scammers alike.

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It’s Way Too Easy to Get a .gov Domain Name

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 02:08:55 +0000

Many readers probably believe they can trust links and emails coming from U.S. federal government domain names, or else assume there are at least more stringent verification requirements involved in obtaining a .gov domain versus a commercial one ending in .com or .org. But a recent experience suggests this trust may be severely misplaced, and that it is relatively straightforward for anyone to obtain their very own .gov domain.

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NCR Barred Mint, QuickBooks from Banking Platform During Account Takeover Storm

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 21:41:48 +0000

Banking industry giant NCR Corp. [NYSE: NCR] late last month took the unusual step of temporarily blocking third-party financial data aggregators Mint and QuicBooks Online from accessing Digital Insight, an online banking platform used by hundreds of financial institutions. That ban, which came in response to a series of bank account takeovers in which cybercriminals used aggregation sites to surveil and drain consumer accounts, has since been rescinded. But the incident raises fresh questions about the proper role of digital banking platforms in fighting password abuse.

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“BriansClub” Hack Rescues 26M Stolen Cards

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 11:05:09 +0000

“BriansClub,” a popular underground store for buying stolen credit card data that uses Yours Truly’s likeness in its advertising, has itself been hacked. The data stolen from BriansClub encompasses more than 26 million credit and debit card records taken from hacked online and brick-and-mortar retailers over the past four years, including almost eight million records uploaded to the shop in 2019 alone.

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Phishers are Angling for Your Cloud Providers

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:21:59 +0000

Many companies are now outsourcing their marketing efforts to cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) providers. But when accounts at those CRM providers get hacked or phished, the results can be damaging for both the client’s brand and their customers. Here’s a look at a recent CRM-based phishing campaign that targeted customers of Fortune 500 construction equipment vendor United Rentals.

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