Scam-as-a-Service operation made more than $6.5 million in 2020

guest · Jan 14, 2021

Scam-as-a-Service operation made more than $6.5 million in 2020
"Classiscam" operation is made up of around 40 groups operating in the US and across several European countries.
January 14, 2021
https://www.zdnet.com/article/scam-as-a-service-operation-made-more-than-6-5-million-in-2020/

A newly uncovered Russian-based cybercrime operation has helped classified ads scammers steal more than $6.5 million from buyers across the US, Europe, and former Soviet states.

In a report published today, cyber-security firm Group-IB has delved into this operation, which the company has described as a Scam-as-a-Service and codenamed Classiscam.
Currently, Classiscam is active in more than a dozen countries and on foreign marketplace and courier services such as Leboncoin, Allegro, OLX, FAN Courier, Sbazar, DHL, and others.
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The scammer would then use a Telegram bot to generate a phishing page that mimicked the original marketplace but was hosted on a look-a-like domain. The scammer would send the link to the buyer, who would fill it with their payment details.

Once the victim provided the payment details, the scammers would take the data and attempt to use it elsewhere to purchase other products.
MORE THAN 40 CLASSISCAM GROUPS ACTIVE TODAY
Group-IB said that the entire operation was very well organized, with "admins" at the top, followed by "workers," and "callers."
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Group-IB: Classiscam expands to Europe: Russian-speaking scammers lure Europeans to pages mimicking classifieds

Group-IB, a global threat hunting and and adversary-centric cyber intelligence company, has discovered that Russian-speaking scammers started targeting users of European marketplaces and classifieds. The scheme, dubbed Classiscam by Group-IB, is an automated scam as a service designed to steal money and payment data. The scheme uses Telegram bots that provide scammers with ready-to-use pages mimicking popular classifieds, marketplaces and sometimes delivery services.
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guest · Aug 8, 2022

Researchers Uncover Classiscam Scam-as-a-Service Operations in Singapore
August 8, 2022

A sophisticated scam-as-a-service operation dubbed Classiscam has now infiltrated into Singapore, more than 1.5 years after expanding to Europe.

"Scammers posing as legitimate buyers approach sellers with the request to purchase goods from their listings and the ultimate aim of stealing payment data," Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
The cybersecurity firm called the operators a "well-coordinated and technologically advanced scammer criminal network."
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The fraudulent operation spans acrosss 64 countries in Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Middle East, with 169 brands used to carry out the attacks. From April 2020 to February 2022, criminals leveraging Classiscam are said to have made at least $29.5 million in illicit profits.

What's notable about this campaign is its heavy reliance on Telegram bots and chats to coordinate operations and create phishing and scam pages.
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Here is the core of how it all works: The scammers post bait ads on popular marketplaces and classified websites, usually offering game consoles, laptops, and smartphones for sale at significant discounts.

When a potential victim contacts the seller (i.e., the threat actor) through the online storefront, the Classiscam operator deceives the target into continuing the chat on a third-party messaging service like WhatsApp or Viber before sending a link to a rogue payment page to complete the transaction.
The scheme involves a hierarchy of administrators, workers, and callers.
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Group-IB: Global scam operation "Classiscam" expanded to Singapore

Scammers posing as legitimate buyers approach sellers with the request to purchase goods from their listings and the ultimate aim of stealing payment data. Ever since Classiscam’s appearance in Singapore, Group-IB Digital Risk Protection (DRP) team has detected a total of 18 domains intended to target buyers on the local classified website, however, according to the team, this number is believed to be significantly higher.

In line with its mission of fighting against cybercrime, Group-IB immediately shared its findings about Classiscam with the members of the Singapore Police Force’s Alliance of Public-Private Cybercrime Stakeholders (APPACT) and the local classified website in question. The main goal of this research is to raise public awareness about the latest scamming methods and reduce the number of victims.
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guest · Aug 10, 2022

How hackers are stealing credit cards from classifieds sites
August 9, 2022

A new credit card stealing campaign is underway in Singapore, snatching the payment details of sellers on classifieds sites through an elaborate phishing trick.

The scammers also attempt to transfer the funds directly to their accounts using valid one-time passcodes (OTPs) on the bank's actual platform.
Threat analysts at Group-IB, who detected this recent wave in March 2022, believe it's part of a global operation called "Classiscam," which they discovered in 2020.
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Expanding operations
Classicscam is a fully-automated "scam as a service" platform that targets users of classifieds sites attempting to sell or buy something listed on the pages.
According to Group-IB, the criminal network currently has 38,000 registered users who get about 75% of the stolen amounts, while the platform administrators receive a 25% cut.
Singapore in the crosshair
Classicscam was previously seen in Russia, Europe, and the United States but recently added the option to create phishing sites that mimic popular Singaporean classifieds sites. Hence, a new and sizable target pool opened up.
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Hard to stop
However, despite having blocked over 5,000 malicious endpoints in the past three years, Classicscam continues to proliferate and expand.

"Classiscam is far more complex to tackle than the conventional types of scams," commented Group-IB's head of digital risk protection team, Ilia Rozhnov.
"Unlike the conventional scams, Classiscam is fully automated and could be widely distributed. Scammers could create an inexhaustible list of links on the fly."
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Group-IB: Inside Classiscam

A deep dive into Classiscam: automated scam as a service designed to steal money and payment data
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zapjb · Aug 10, 2022

Basically it's a phishing scheme?

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Scam-as-a-Service operation made more than $6.5 million in 2020

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