Tag Archives: dark web

Islamic State duped by ‘dark web’ mafia site offering murder, mayhem for Bitcoins

– The Washington Times – Wednesday, June 29, 2016

The Islamic State is steering followers to a “dark web” mafia site that offers murder and other mayhem for hire at a price of thousands of dollars in Bitcoins, the online currency.

The problem for the world’s most vicious terrorist army is that hackers in recent weeks have exposed the “Besa Mafia” destination as an elaborate fraud. It is likely run not by the real-life Besa Albania Mafia and its criminal networks in Europe and the United States, but by a guy living in Romania.

This means the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, is sending its followers on a money-wasting venture that is not likely to get anybody killed.

The Islamic State’s endorsement of the Besa Mafia site was discovered by the Middle East Media Research Institute.MEMRI, which monitors jihadi traffic, found Islamic State’s June 14 message on the channel Cyber Kahilafah, which is carried on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Telegram is its own story. Invented by an exiled Russian technocrat as a way for dissidents to escape the wrath of Vladimir Putin, Telegram has become the go-to platform for jihadis’ planning and commanding terrorist attacks, according to its detractors.

The Besa Mafia location is one of the more intriguing stops on the mysterious dark web. Users can reach this sinister-sounding world anonymously via special browsers, such as The Onion Router, or TOR, that do not leave an IP address — no electronic fingerprints.

Read Full Article – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/29/isis-duped-by-besa-mafia-dark-web-site-offering-mu/

Ad fraud could become the second biggest organized crime enterprise behind the drug trade

by Patrick Kulp

It may not make for a great Martin Scorsese film, but online ad fraud is growing into one of the biggest organized crime businesses in the world.

That’s according to a new report from the World Federation of Advertisers, which estimates that within the next decade, fake Internet traffic schemes will become the second-largestmarket for criminal organizations behind cocaine and opiate trafficking.

The WFA, an international marketing trade group, arrived at that projection by estimating the current pace of growth in the online ad industry and extrapolating it out over the next 10 years, assuming an accelerating rate of spending on digital media.

The stat puts in stark relief a growing problem: A huge number of online ads — more than half of them, by some accounts — never reach actual humans. Many fall victim to technical display problems, while others are viewed by networks of automated bots designed to mimic human behavior.

Even at conservative projections, the report claims, the total cost of fraud, if unchecked, could exceed $50 billion by 2025 — or one-tenth of the $500 billion the report loftily predicts the global digital ad market will be worth by then.

Researchers then compared that number to United Nations and FBI estimates of the size of other global criminal markets like human trafficking, firearms sales and natural resource smuggling.

According to the report, organized crime members and other criminals are attracted to ad fraud because it offers the prospect of higher payouts than many other criminal pursuits, at a lower risk and with relatively little effort.

The report also claims that law enforcement is not technologically equipped enough to regulate online ad space.

The WFA researchers bank their study on the assumption that ad fraud will most likely grow — either in the number of scammers or the efficiency of their technology — along with spending in digital media.

If that sounds like a lot of guesswork, it’s because illegal businesses don’t exactly keep public financial records, and the scope of the vast ad fraud underbelly is particularly nebulous.

The most widely cited authority on the matter is an annual report published by the Association of National Advertisers, which forecasts a $7.2 billion loss to fraud in 2016 — or about 5% of total spending.

But the WFA claims that the ANA report, which only covers select blue-chip American brands, may have lowballed the threat. Its own research cites various anti-fraud studies that peg the impact at anywhere between 2% and an eyebrow-raising 98%.

More of the studies (from a group of well-established publishers) come in on the lower end of that range, but the true extent of the problem is neither clear-cut nor universally agreed upon.

Part of that murk has to do with the difficulty of tracking the sources of fraud — the assortment of mobsters, former bank robbers, hackers and Russian millionaires in charge of the multibillion-dollar racket.

But cyber criminals aren’t the only ones with an interest in covering their tracks. Actors at every level of the digital ad assembly line, from publishers to agencies to advertising networks — basically everyone except for the brands actually paying for the ads — have at least some incentive to keep the problem in the dark.

“Nobody works alone in this sphere. They’re all sort of riding on each other’s backs,” says Jeremy Goldman, an attorney who specializes in technology and digital media law. “Nobody wants to take the fall and say they were the ones who hired the bad apple. It’s better to hide or push it under the rug.”

Full article – http://mashable.com/2016/06/09/ad-fraud-organized-crime/#0IBbBnRNGOqf

Cybersecurity Cyber conmen target pensioners after TalkTalk hacking scandal

The criminals are reported to be trawling through the private details of thousands of victims

Cyber conmen are targeting pensioners in the wake of the TalkTalk security hack and attacks on other major companies, it has been reported.

The criminals are reported to be trawling through the private details of thousands of victims , especially those aged over-65 as they believe the elderly are more vulnerable to fraudulent cold calls or emails.

It is believed that newly cash-rich pensioners are an attractive target as new legislation means they are able to withdraw all their retirement savings or pension pot in one go.

Hackers sell stolen data on the Dark Web using software that allows their identities to be hidden from the police.

Once conmen have bought these details they pretend to offer compensation for the data breach before asking for victims’ bank account details.

Some send emails with a message including a link that claims to direct victims to an official website.

But clicking on the link merely enables conmen to take over the victim’s computer and gain access to their bank account.

A cyber-crime officer said: “The fraudsters look for victims o their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

“Some of the conmen have call centre training which means they sound genuine when they call up pretending to be from a telecoms company.”

A Met Police spokesman said: “We are aware data stolen from TalkTalk had surfaced on the internet or criminal forums and have already taken proactive steps to remove any data where possible.”

Read Full Article – http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cyber-conmen-target-pensioners-after-6749423