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How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

vin01.github.io

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Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#61

Post by pnw »

araes wrote: post #59
pnw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I sent this to a friend on the dev team at Ticketmaster and they escalated it.

Its cool you at least attempted to do something with a bit of social connection at such a heavily targeted website. Having personal issues with Ticketmaster's pricing methods (causing many to probably never want to do anything that might help) is a different issue than the website being used as a source for redirecting calls to fake call centers. Since they escalated maybe something will get done. Ticketmaster would…

Looks like they already tweaked it so the result is less useful to the scammers.

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#62

Post by ninkendo »

fckgw wrote: post #33
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I craft a search where the search query is “call 1 800 scam”, then I buy a google ad with key word of “ticketmaster help”, the ad links to real ticketmaster with my query, and google shows that ad to someone having trouble and hey presto they call my scam line at 4 quid a minute from their mobile? Yuck all round. I mean ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars but yuck ..

Exactly. And when you try and help these people and explain that you didn't actually call Ticketmaster support they will tell you that they found the phone number on the official Ticketmaster website and Google said it was a verified link. Here's a real example from the same thing happening on FB (don't call that number) https://i.redd.it/w9htjqflgjle1.jpeg

Completely unrelated tangent: Jesus Christ Reddit is such a cesspit.

Tried tapping that link on mobile, got a screen to view the corresponding post. Tapped it, and I got taken to the App Store. No thanks, force quit the App Store and go back.

Now I get a full screen notice on the original Reddit tab saying “didn’t go where you expected? Next time try the long press!” With instructions to not use private browsing and to long press any link and open in safari. (Wha? You, Reddit, are what are trying to force me to use your app!)

So I long press like they say, open in new tab, and what do I see? A large blank page that just says “REDDIT” in all caps, with the button “Get the app” on the bottom. The link was just to “reddit.app.link” the whole time.

Can’t a company who has a website, just … let me use the website? At every possible turn, Reddit HATES anyone using Reddit from a browser. They will ruin every single aspect of the website they possibly can to try to push you to the app. The entirety of reddit.com seems to be just a broken honeypot to get you to use the app instead. I just can’t fathom how a company can be that broken.

Just delete the Reddit website, it would make more sense.

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#63

Post by netsharc »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #48
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why does google allow unverified owners of a domain to buy ads for it? Surely only ticketmaster or agencies approved by ticket master should be allowed to do this?

There was a time when you search for WhatsApp in Google the first sponsored result is a scam site

One time an article about Facebook logins got to #1 and its comments were full of people mad that Facebook changed their website yet again, how can they login to Facebook, waah, waah!

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#64

Post by acomjean »

fckgw wrote: post #33
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I craft a search where the search query is “call 1 800 scam”, then I buy a google ad with key word of “ticketmaster help”, the ad links to real ticketmaster with my query, and google shows that ad to someone having trouble and hey presto they call my scam line at 4 quid a minute from their mobile? Yuck all round. I mean ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars but yuck ..

Exactly. And when you try and help these people and explain that you didn't actually call Ticketmaster support they will tell you that they found the phone number on the official Ticketmaster website and Google said it was a verified link. Here's a real example from the same thing happening on FB (don't call that number) https://i.redd.it/w9htjqflgjle1.jpeg

I used to rely on google filtering when searching for sites. Then on the google search page I fell for an add.

I caught it right after I tried to log in (one of the few sites I remember the password and didn’t have it in a manager). Reset password.

Man did I feel dumb.

I searched the financial institution a few times and the fake ad came up a bunch. I reported but the trust has been broken.

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#65

Post by rahimnathwani »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #13
SoftTalker wrote: post #2

Among the common vulnerabilities listed: > Outdated Wordpress plugins and CMS systems No surprise, having worked in edu the following scenario was very common: 1) Researcher gets a grant for a project 2) Grad student sets up a Drupal site for the project 3) Things are maintained and updated for a couple of years 4) Grant runs out, project wraps up, student graduates, everyone forgets about the server which sits unatt…

At my old university ~15 years ago, all IPs of all computers were public IPV4 addresses . Any computer plugged in to any ethernet port on campus was given such a "quasi-static" IP address. All normal ports were open - ssh, http(s), you name it. It was the OG zero trust architecture.

Only computers?

At my old university even printers had public IP addresses.

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#66

Post by temp0826 »

fckgw wrote: post #9

I've noticed on some scam forums and subreddits I frequent that scammers have been using target site's own support searches to redirect users to scam phone numbers. On both Ticketmaster and Facebook, and many other sites, when you perform a search on their support site it spits back your query in big letters at the top of the page. If you craft the correct search and then buy Google Ads pretending to be Ticketmaster,…

A family member fell for this while trying to recover their hacked fb account. I was around and caught wind of the call and some of the absurd steps (absurd to me, anyways) they were proposing and pulled the plug on the "support" call. The phone number was in what seemed to be a cached result of a bad search or something. '"Call us at xxx-xxxx..." not found' is what I saw. (Finding a real support number is either difficult or impossible, which makes this a good trap)

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#67

Post by [deleted] »

progbits wrote: post #35
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why does google allow unverified owners of a domain to buy ads for it? Surely only ticketmaster or agencies approved by ticket master should be allowed to do this?

Because most of the ads are created by external ad agencies, and the people involved are not competent enough to do any verification. Source: I've also thought this was ridiculous and asked someone working on the adsense team. Apparently tried enforcing some domain verification mechanism in an experiment, but most companies and agencies struggled to get the verification done and of course the $ metrics on this launch…

[deleted]

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#68

Post by nothrabannosir »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #15
fckgw wrote: post #9

I've noticed on some scam forums and subreddits I frequent that scammers have been using target site's own support searches to redirect users to scam phone numbers. On both Ticketmaster and Facebook, and many other sites, when you perform a search on their support site it spits back your query in big letters at the top of the page. If you craft the correct search and then buy Google Ads pretending to be Ticketmaster,…

So, I craft a search where the search query is “call 1 800 scam”, then I buy a google ad with key word of “ticketmaster help”, the ad links to real ticketmaster with my query, and google shows that ad to someone having trouble and hey presto they call my scam line at 4 quid a minute from their mobile? Yuck all round. I mean ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars but yuck ..

> ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars

Apparently Live Nation owns many performance venues and leverages their power in that market to gain an advantage in the ticket sales market. “Sell through us or you won’t be allowed to play at any famous venue in this city” kind of deal.

Don’t have any sources beyond “heard it on a podcast” though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#69

Post by foobahhhhh »

fckgw wrote: post #33
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I craft a search where the search query is “call 1 800 scam”, then I buy a google ad with key word of “ticketmaster help”, the ad links to real ticketmaster with my query, and google shows that ad to someone having trouble and hey presto they call my scam line at 4 quid a minute from their mobile? Yuck all round. I mean ticketmaster is just a sin eater for greedy popstars but yuck ..

Exactly. And when you try and help these people and explain that you didn't actually call Ticketmaster support they will tell you that they found the phone number on the official Ticketmaster website and Google said it was a verified link. Here's a real example from the same thing happening on FB (don't call that number) https://i.redd.it/w9htjqflgjle1.jpeg

Hah. I'd make tbe text:

    search all of your friends and connections". You may have lost access to your friends and family. To fix this you need to call ....

Re: How are cyber criminals rolling in 2025?

#70

Post by KronisLV »

ninkendo wrote: post #62
fckgw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And when you try and help these people and explain that you didn't actually call Ticketmaster support they will tell you that they found the phone number on the official Ticketmaster website and Google said it was a verified link. Here's a real example from the same thing happening on FB (don't call that number) https://i.redd.it/w9htjqflgjle1.jpeg

Completely unrelated tangent: Jesus Christ Reddit is such a cesspit. Tried tapping that link on mobile, got a screen to view the corresponding post. Tapped it, and I got taken to the App Store. No thanks, force quit the App Store and go back. Now I get a full screen notice on the original Reddit tab saying “didn’t go where you expected? Next time try the long press!” With instructions to not use private browsing and…

> The entirety of redit.com seems to be just a broken honeypot to get you to use the app instead. I just can’t fathom how a company can be that broken.

It's their intention to have the website be a funnel so that they can get more mobile users.

I sometimes use https://old.reddit.com, though it doesn't look that great on mobile, maybe there are some other alternatives.

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