Cybercriminals have sunk to a new low with this latest scam
Romance scams are getting even uglier, researchers warn
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Cybercrooks attacking overbooked hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic was low, but a new scheme proves that for some fraudsters, there’s no bottom to which they cannot sink.
A disturbing new campaign has been spotted, in which photos of abuse victims were being used to trick people into paying recurring fees for a non-existent service.
Reports claim that there are dozens of fake ID verification services out there that promise to cross-reference registered accounts with known sex offender databases. However, all these “services” do is take people’s credit card info, possiblystealing their identitiesin the process, and setting them up for a recurring payment service.
Criminal scams
To get people to “register”, the fraudsters create fakeaccountson hookup platforms such as Tinder. As multiple people confirmed to the publication, the fraudster would create an account of an attractive woman, and after chatting a little bit with the target, would say they were victims of abuse in the past. They would even share actual photos of the woman, abused, to back up their claims.
Then, they would demand their new love interest to register on one of these sites, to “confirm” they were not an abusive individual. Most of the sites (of which there are many, as the publication discovered), were registered to an entity in Cyprus, which was unavailable for comment.
The sites feature user testimonials which turned out to be fake, as the images of the people were found on stock photo sites. What’s more, instead of the actual payment form, the sites hold an HTML iFrame served from domains that read as if someone just hit the keyboard - ndwhvl.com, ntrfrnc.com, pcngyh.com - to name a few.
Americans lost over $500 million to online romance scams last year>Online crime cost Americans billions last year>Social media scams hit a new high in 2021
Those that fall for the trick and decide to “register”, can choose among multiple membership options, ranging from $1.99, all the way up to $100, depending on the website and the membership package.
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Next only to Elon Musk-related schemes, romance frauds are one of the most popular types of scams on the internet, right now. Users are advised to be extra vigilant with everything they do online, and activatetwo-factor authenticationwherever available.
Via:BleepingComputer
Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.
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