Live data from Hacker News

Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

bewildered.substack.com

31–40 of 677 posts

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#31
post #10

Does anyone know how the email from (or appearing to be from) @google.com works? Wouldn't the Apple account reject it because it fails DKIM/etc?

How Email Spoofing Exploits SPF and DMARC: A Cybersecurity Deep Dive.

https://undercodetesting.com/how-email-spoofing-exploits-spf...

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#33

Can someone please explain to me what it means for authenticator codes to be “cloud-synced”? Is that solely dependent on whether you’re using the Google Authenticator app while signed in to your Google Account? Is it possible to not have them “cloud-synced” if you are signed in?

Google Authenticator app defaults to backing up the TOTP secrets so if you log in on a new device you have them there. Pretty poor default for security, and you can disable it, but not the first time I've heard of this biting someone.

The risk of not syncing — when you lose/reset your phone, so does your OTP app. If you don't have backup codes saved, you're cooked.

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#34

> The attacker spoofed the “From” field so it looked like the emails came from @google.com — something Google’s filters should have blocked outright. On iOS, Gmail doesn’t let you view full headers, so I had no way to double-check in the moment. Can somebody explain what exactly this means, and how it works?

Assuming I follow what you want to know, the wikipedia page on email spoofing should provide the info you desire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing

I'm pretty surprised gmail didn't flag this at least. When I did it for a class in Uni, it always let me know that the FROM header didn't match the sender since that's a clear attack vector

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Authenticator app defaults to backing up the TOTP secrets so if you log in on a new device you have them there. Pretty poor default for security, and you can disable it, but not the first time I've heard of this biting someone.

The risk of not syncing — when you lose/reset your phone, so does your OTP app. If you don't have backup codes saved, you're cooked.

> The risk of not syncing — when you lose/reset your phone, so does your OTP app. If you don't have backup codes saved, you're cooked.

Most clued-up places enable you to register a Yubikey as 2FA.

So then it doesn't matter if you loose your OTP app and your backup codes because you've still got a Yubikey.

(And those that don't allow Yubikey, almost certainly will have SMS as a secondary option).

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#37

Can someone please explain to me what it means for authenticator codes to be “cloud-synced”? Is that solely dependent on whether you’re using the Google Authenticator app while signed in to your Google Account? Is it possible to not have them “cloud-synced” if you are signed in?

Google Authenticator app defaults to backing up the TOTP secrets so if you log in on a new device you have them there. Pretty poor default for security, and you can disable it, but not the first time I've heard of this biting someone.

You mean to say that if it were enabled on my Google account, then the TOTP numbers for my other accounts are visible via authenticating into Google Account on some other unknown device? Sounds like it could be convenient if you lose your phone, but still risky if an attacker can sign into your Google Account.

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#38
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Authenticator app defaults to backing up the TOTP secrets so if you log in on a new device you have them there. Pretty poor default for security, and you can disable it, but not the first time I've heard of this biting someone.

The risk of not syncing — when you lose/reset your phone, so does your OTP app. If you don't have backup codes saved, you're cooked.

Which is why most apps with sync have two sets of credentials: one to login on the platform and one master password for encryption. That helps in those scenarios.

Re: Scammed out of $130K via fake Google call, spoofed Google email and auth sync

#40
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Authenticator app defaults to backing up the TOTP secrets so if you log in on a new device you have them there. Pretty poor default for security, and you can disable it, but not the first time I've heard of this biting someone.

The risk of not syncing — when you lose/reset your phone, so does your OTP app. If you don't have backup codes saved, you're cooked.

Yes. There are other ways of syncing (I have images of the setup QR codes save in an encrypted file) but most people wouldn’t be able to manage this.
Post reply on HN