In some countries, being a scammer is as legitimate a profession as being a nurse or a teacher. When jobs are sparse and education is out of reach of many, often people are forced to put morals aside in order …
We All Work For Namecheap
So you want to start your first phishing site. First of all, you need to purchase a domain. Something that will trick unsuspecting internet users into clicking on it and submitting their credentials. Then you have to secure a good-value …
Pyrotechnic Pretexts
We recently saw a video posted by the London Fire Brigade on Twitter and it got us thinking. I’m sure followers of the blog know just what we thought already… It’s probably best to rate the London Fire Brigade on …
How Low Will They Go?
True to form, cybercriminals are out in force trying to exploit the recent COVID issue. According to Action-Fraud, they have already netted close to £970,000 from UK victims. Source: Why use COVID-19 in scams? In phishing simulations, we see a …
Action For Fraud Victims
According to reputable sources, around 95% of the cases reported to Action Fraud are left unsolved. It’s unsure at which step of the journey the case could get shelved – but sadly the figures don’t make for good reading. Take …
Cocaine & Credentials
I recently had the pleasure to watch a talk at BSides Leeds by Darren Martyn. He’s a security researcher who really understands the criminal ecosystem of stolen credentials. The talk focussed on ‘scum lords’, the term he chooses for those …
All Inclusive Scams
If there is one thing that always impresses me it’s the ways scammers rotate what they do, many marketing teams could learn a thing or two by watching this. Scammers are always the first ones to exploit seasonal events. Be …
Looking For Fraud
Here at The AntiSocial Engineer Limited we are always keen to identify the things that enable social engineers. The name is more than a play on words, our business is all about throwing the spanners into serious organised crime and …
CEO Fraud: Cutting Everything Out
CEO Fraud is the catchy name for frauds that are committed by a criminal, that pretends to be the company CEO or another high-level member of staff. The internet is awash with guides about CEO Fraud, but few seem to …
Diamonds and Dirt
I quite like diamonds. Not for their look but for the whole backstory on why they are so desired today. The De Beers ‘cartel’, amongst others, inflated the price of diamonds since the 1800s. Around 1938 the De Beers diamond group …
The Romance Scam
There was a simpler time where people would send post cards asking for pen-friends. A friendship slowly developed and they would ask for a small amount of money. With the advent of the internet all this changed though, scammers could …
Technology Makes Us Safer… Sometimes…
Whilst many of us in Information Security are struggling to patch the broken and educate the confused, the largest of the corporates seem to be making giant leaps in protecting their customers. None more so then the banking sectors! Of …
Opening Up Fraudulent Invoices
We often talk about the unknown ‘attackers’ out to get us in the context of cyber security, but the majority of these types are not confrontational people – they barely deserve the term attacker. They hide in the shadows with …
The ‘can you hear me’ scam
Last week you might have heard in the press about a phone scam that’s is supposedly sweeping the nation. The dreaded, super sneaky ‘Can you hear me’ scam. Fraudsters will ring you and ask the question “Can you hear me?”. …
Will they send a SMS or won’t they?
Recently I stumbled across a publication from HMRC, it stated the forms of communications they would use to contact the tax paying public. Example messages were displayed in an attempt to ‘whitelist’ communications. Basically, if you receive correspondence that looks …