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I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

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Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#3
> I brought down a scamming operation

This seems like clickbait. Being told your server's Apache config has been deleted and you need to recreate it is barely an inconvenience for a scammer whose operation probably brings home much more cash than the hour it will take them to get back to normal ops...

Why would you even tell them what you did to their server in the first place?

Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#5

Hilarious. Did you find out how their scam actually worked? Are they just harvesting user credentials of those who sign up and then later trying to hack the accounts?

I think an certain youtuber would have loved that shell access to make a video about it

Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#6

Hilarious. Did you find out how their scam actually worked? Are they just harvesting user credentials of those who sign up and then later trying to hack the accounts?

They harvest username, email and passwords from users (If someone not too tech savvy uses the same email/password combination for more than one service they can access their accounts). The main function of this scam campaign is to steal "gas fees" money (no actual minting involved, looked at the code). They ask 0.15 ETH for each entry. In my case they could've got something around 6000$.

There are people that have fallen for this scam.

Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#7
This is well-meant, but the author seems to be based in Italy, and this is illegal in Italy [1]. I know how tempting it is to retaliate against these people, but you have to stay on the right side of the law.

If you choose not to stay on the right side of the law, then at a minimum you really should avoid blogging about your crimes.

[1] https://iclg.com/practice-areas/cybersecurity-laws-and-regul...

Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#8
post #3

> I brought down a scamming operation This seems like clickbait. Being told your server's Apache config has been deleted and you need to recreate it is barely an inconvenience for a scammer whose operation probably brings home much more cash than the hour it will take them to get back to normal ops... Why would you even tell them what you did to their server in the first place?

Yeah you need to install a rootkit or something more persistent.

Re: I brought down a scamming operation with 15 bytes of PHP

#10
post #3

> I brought down a scamming operation This seems like clickbait. Being told your server's Apache config has been deleted and you need to recreate it is barely an inconvenience for a scammer whose operation probably brings home much more cash than the hour it will take them to get back to normal ops... Why would you even tell them what you did to their server in the first place?

> for a scammer whose operation probably brings home much more cash

There's probably a very long tail of scamming operations that are only profitable because the operator is in a country with very low cost of living. Based on the short list of domains on the server, it might not be the biggest operation.

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