Renting A Canadian Bot for Less than the Price of Dinner for Two
A botnet is a network of computers infected with malware that allows a malicious actor – the botmaster – to control them remotely. The infected computers – the bots – communicate with a command and control server (C&C) to receive their orders. The use cases for bots are too numerous to list here, but […]
The Criminal Underground: the Last Refuge of Banner Ads
In the 2000s, banner ads became popular notably through Google. The search engine has enabled marketers to reach a vast audience through a standard visual message that fit on any web page. Just like containers for shipping, banner ads were standardized to make it easier to share and post on multiple platforms. While useful for […]
The Mirage of Encrypted Phones, and Why They Fail
In June 2014, the company Silent Circle launched the first version of its Blackphone. This device, running a modified version of Android, promised to reign in difficult to understand privacy and security settings to make it easy to communicate securely. Blackphone users were supposed to be able to make encrypted calls and send encrypted messages […]
The Ins and Outs of Illicit Chat Rooms
Over the past decade, the dark web has attracted much of the attention in the security field as the premier source of threats for companies. Our years of monitoring the dark web have helped better understand what it is, and most importantly, is not. The dark web is host to many dynamic malicious actor communities. […]
The Demand for Canadian Bots on Genesis Market
Since the end of January, $10.1 million have already been lost to fraud in Canada, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. When it comes to online identity theft, it may be harder to prevent than the traditional fraud we have been used to. Automatic logins and the use of unencrypted connections for online transactions can […]
Which Darknet Market Has Replaced DarkMarket?
Updated: November 26th, 2021 As the article below is a bit out of date, here’s a breakdown of most of the large changes in the dark web marketplace scene: Empire Market exit scammed in August 2020 DarkMarket was sized in January 2021 Yellow Brick exited a few days after DarkMarket BigBlue was seized by Interpol in […]
California Sees Up To 27% of Fraudulent Unemployment Claims During COVID
When the Canadian Government set up the CERB program in the Spring of 2020, speed was its main focus. Canadians were losing their job to government-mandated lockdowns, and they needed to put food on the table. The Government opted for a very simple form that took seconds to fill out, hosted on the Canada Revenue […]
Inexperienced Malicious Actors Leak Data about Themselves
There has been a flurry of news reports about malicious actors taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to steal personal and financial information from victims. Bleeping Computer recently reported that malicious actors were sending fake invitations to get vaccinated by the UK National Health Service. To receive their vaccine, the victims were asked to share […]
The Russians or the Victims: Who’s to Blame for Carding?
Whenever Russians are mentioned in a story about the criminal underground, they were most likely part of some illicit activity. A few years ago, Russians appeared to be deeply involved in spam campaigns and sending illicit pharmaceuticals online. More recently, there have been increasing mentions of Russians participating in ransomware distribution, as well as in […]
What Are Malicious Actors Secretly Doing with Your Data?
A well-known malicious actor recently published on a forum the information of millions of customers of a popular T-shirt printing service. While no passwords were leaked, the criminal did publish the email addresses and personal information (names, addresses, and phone numbers) of millions of people. Why is this leak significant? First, this basic information is […]
