Tag Archives: cybercrime

Google Is Suing Chinese Scammers Who Are Using Gemini

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/07/google-is-suing-chinese-scammers-who-are-using-gemini.html

Not sure this will have any effect, but I support the effort:

According to Google’s legal filing, Outsider Enterprise operates through Telegram. The group offers phishing-as-a-service to individuals who may not be technically savvy enough to set up fraudulent websites and text campaigns on their own. In its Telegram channels, Outsider Enterprise reportedly provided instructions on how to use Google’s Gemini AI to create websites that imitate those of Google, YouTube, and government agencies such as New York’s E-ZPass. The group offered nearly 300 scam templates.

[…]

Google worked with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to block many of these malicious text messages, and Google notes that its on-device scam detection in Google Messages probably helped reduce the number of successful phishing attempts, too. This AI-powered feature apparently stops 10 billion scam texts every month, so it’s fair to expect it caught at least some Outsider Enterprise activity.

Another article.

DarkSword Malware

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/darksword-malware.html

DarkSword is a sophisticated piece of malware—probably government designed—that targets iOS.

Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has identified a new iOS full-chain exploit that leveraged multiple zero-day vulnerabilities to fully compromise devices. Based on toolmarks in recovered payloads, we believe the exploit chain to be called DarkSword. Since at least November 2025, GTIG has observed multiple commercial surveillance vendors and suspected state-sponsored actors utilizing DarkSword in distinct campaigns. These threat actors have deployed the exploit chain against targets in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia, and Ukraine.

DarkSword supports iOS versions 18.4 through 18.7 and utilizes six different vulnerabilities to deploy final-stage payloads. GTIG has identified three distinct malware families deployed following a successful DarkSword compromise: GHOSTBLADE, GHOSTKNIFE, and GHOSTSABER. The proliferation of this single exploit chain across disparate threat actors mirrors the previously discovered Coruna iOS exploit kit. Notably, UNC6353, a suspected Russian espionage group previously observed using Coruna, has recently incorporated DarkSword into their watering hole campaigns.

A week after it was identified, a version of it leaked onto the internet, where it is being used more broadly.

This news is a month old. Your devices are safe, assuming you patch regularly.

How Hackers Are Thinking About AI

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/04/how-hackers-are-thinking-about-ai.html

Interesting paper: “What hackers talk about when they talk about AI: Early-stage diffusion of a cybercrime innovation.”

Abstract: The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) is raising concerns about its potential to transform cybercrime. Beyond empowering novice offenders, AI stands to intensify the scale and sophistication of attacks by seasoned cybercriminals. This paper examines the evolving relationship between cybercriminals and AI using a unique dataset from a cyber threat intelligence platform. Analyzing more than 160 cybercrime forum conversations collected over seven months, our research reveals how cybercriminals understand AI and discuss how they can exploit its capabilities. Their exchanges reflect growing curiosity about AI’s criminal applications through legal tools and dedicated criminal tools, but also doubts and anxieties about AI’s effectiveness and its effects on their business models and operational security. The study documents attempts to misuse legitimate AI tools and develop bespoke models tailored for illicit purposes. Combining the diffusion of innovation framework with thematic analysis, the paper provides an in-depth view of emerging AI-enabled cybercrime and offers practical insights for law enforcement and policymakers.

Scam USPS and E-Z Pass Texts and Websites

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/11/scam-usps-and-e-z-pass-texts-and-websites.html

Google has filed a complaint in court that details the scam:

In a complaint filed Wednesday, the tech giant accused “a cybercriminal group in China” of selling “phishing for dummies” kits. The kits help unsavvy fraudsters easily “execute a large-scale phishing campaign,” tricking hordes of unsuspecting people into “disclosing sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or banking information, often by impersonating well-known brands, government agencies, or even people the victim knows.”

These branded “Lighthouse” kits offer two versions of software, depending on whether bad actors want to launch SMS and e-commerce scams. “Members may subscribe to weekly, monthly, seasonal, annual, or permanent licenses,” Google alleged. Kits include “hundreds of templates for fake websites, domain set-up tools for those fake websites, and other features designed to dupe victims into believing they are entering sensitive information on a legitimate website.”

Google’s filing said the scams often begin with a text claiming that a toll fee is overdue or a small fee must be paid to redeliver a package. Other times they appear as ads—­sometimes even Google ads, until Google detected and suspended accounts—­luring victims by mimicking popular brands. Anyone who clicks will be redirected to a website to input sensitive information; the sites often claim to accept payments from trusted wallets like Google Pay.

Generative AI as a Cybercrime Assistant

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/09/generative-ai-as-a-cybercrime-assistant.html

Anthropic reports on a Claude user:

We recently disrupted a sophisticated cybercriminal that used Claude Code to commit large-scale theft and extortion of personal data. The actor targeted at least 17 distinct organizations, including in healthcare, the emergency services, and government and religious institutions. Rather than encrypt the stolen information with traditional ransomware, the actor threatened to expose the data publicly in order to attempt to extort victims into paying ransoms that sometimes exceeded $500,000.

The actor used AI to what we believe is an unprecedented degree. Claude Code was used to automate reconnaissance, harvesting victims’ credentials, and penetrating networks. Claude was allowed to make both tactical and strategic decisions, such as deciding which data to exfiltrate, and how to craft psychologically targeted extortion demands. Claude analyzed the exfiltrated financial data to determine appropriate ransom amounts, and generated visually alarming ransom notes that were displayed on victim machines.

This is scary. It’s a significant improvement over what was possible even a few years ago.

Read the whole Anthropic essay. They discovered North Koreans using Claude to commit remote-worker fraud, and a cybercriminal using Claude “to develop, market, and distribute several variants of ransomware, each with advanced evasion capabilities, encryption, and anti-recovery mechanisms.”

Cloudflare Reports that Almost 7% of All Internet Traffic Is Malicious

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/07/cloudflare-reports-that-almost-7-of-all-internet-traffic-is-malicious.html

6.8%, to be precise.

From ZDNet:

However, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks continue to be cybercriminals’ weapon of choice, making up over 37% of all mitigated traffic. The scale of these attacks is staggering. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, Cloudflare blocked 4.5 million unique DDoS attacks. That total is nearly a third of all the DDoS attacks they mitigated the previous year.

But it’s not just about the sheer volume of DDoS attacks. The sophistication of these attacks is increasing, too. Last August, Cloudflare mitigated a massive HTTP/2 Rapid Reset DDoS attack that peaked at 201 million requests per second (RPS). That number is three times bigger than any previously observed attack.

It wasn’t just Cloudflare that was hit by the largest DDoS attack in its history. Google Cloud reported the same attack peaked at an astonishing 398 million RPS. So, how big is that number? According to Google, Google Cloud was slammed by more RPS in two minutes than Wikipedia saw traffic during September 2023.

The Justice Department Took Down the 911 S5 Botnet

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/06/the-justice-department-took-down-the-911-s5-botnet.html

The US Justice Department has dismantled an enormous botnet:

According to an indictment unsealed on May 24, from 2014 through July 2022, Wang and others are alleged to have created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide. These devices were associated with more than 19 million unique IP addresses, including 613,841 IP addresses located in the United States. Wang then generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses for a fee.

[…]

This operation was a coordinated multiagency effort led by law enforcement in the United States, Singapore, Thailand, and Germany. Agents and officers searched residences, seized assets valued at approximately $30 million, and identified additional forfeitable property valued at approximately $30 million. The operation also seized 23 domains and over 70 servers constituting the backbone of Wang’s prior residential proxy service and the recent incarnation of the service. By seizing multiple domains tied to the historical 911 S5, as well as several new domains and services directly linked to an effort to reconstitute the service, the government has successfully terminated Wang’s efforts to further victimize individuals through his newly formed service Clourouter.io and closed the existing malicious backdoors.

The creator and operator of the botnet, YunHe Wang, was arrested in Singapore.

Three news articles.

How Criminals Are Using Generative AI

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/05/how-criminals-are-using-generative-ai.html

There’s a new report on how criminals are using generative AI tools:

Key Takeaways:

  • Adoption rates of AI technologies among criminals lag behind the rates of their industry counterparts because of the evolving nature of cybercrime.
  • Compared to last year, criminals seem to have abandoned any attempt at training real criminal large language models (LLMs). Instead, they are jailbreaking existing ones.
  • We are finally seeing the emergence of actual criminal deepfake services, with some bypassing user verification used in financial services.

The Hacker Tool to Get Personal Data from Credit Bureaus

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/09/the-hacker-tool-to-get-personal-data-from-credit-bureaus.html

The new site 404 Media has a good article on how hackers are cheaply getting personal information from credit bureaus:

This is the result of a secret weapon criminals are selling access to online that appears to tap into an especially powerful set of data: the target’s credit header. This is personal information that the credit bureaus Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion have on most adults in America via their credit cards. Through a complex web of agreements and purchases, that data trickles down from the credit bureaus to other companies who offer it to debt collectors, insurance companies, and law enforcement.

A 404 Media investigation has found that criminals have managed to tap into that data supply chain, in some cases by stealing former law enforcement officer’s identities, and are selling unfettered access to their criminal cohorts online. The tool 404 Media tested has also been used to gather information on high profile targets such as Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and even President Joe Biden, seemingly without restriction. 404 Media verified that although not always sensitive, at least some of that data is accurate.

EFF on the UN Cybercrime Treaty

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/eff-on-the-un-cybercrime-treaty.html

EFF has a good explainer on the problems with the new UN Cybercrime Treaty, currently being negotiated in Vienna.

The draft treaty has the potential to rewrite criminal laws around the world, possibly adding over 30 criminal offenses and new expansive police powers for both domestic and international criminal investigations.

[…]

While we don’t think the U.N. Cybercrime Treaty is necessary, we’ve been closely scrutinizing the process and providing constructive analysis. We’ve made clear that human rights must be baked into the proposed treaty so that it doesn’t become a tool to stifle freedom of expression, infringe on privacy and data protection, or endanger vulnerable people and communities.

FBI (and Others) Shut Down Genesis Market

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/fbi-and-others-shut-down-genesis-market.html

Genesis Market is shut down:

Active since 2018, Genesis Market’s slogan was, “Our store sells bots with logs, cookies, and their real fingerprints.” Customers could search for infected systems with a variety of options, including by Internet address or by specific domain names associated with stolen credentials.

But earlier today, multiple domains associated with Genesis had their homepages replaced with a seizure notice from the FBI, which said the domains were seized pursuant to a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin did not respond to requests for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

But sources close to the investigation tell KrebsOnSecurity that law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada and across Europe are currently serving arrest warrants on dozens of individuals thought to support Genesis, either by maintaining the site or selling the service bot logs from infected systems.

The seizure notice includes the seals of law enforcement entities from several countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Slashdot story.

UK Runs Fake DDoS-for-Hire Sites

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/uk-runs-fake-ddos-for-hire-sites.html

Brian Krebs is reporting that the UK’s National Crime Agency is setting up fake DDoS-for-hire sites as part of a sting operation:

The NCA says all of its fake so-called “booter” or “stresser” sites -­ which have so far been accessed by several thousand people—have been created to look like they offer the tools and services that enable cyber criminals to execute these attacks.

“However, after users register, rather than being given access to cyber crime tools, their data is collated by investigators,” reads an NCA advisory on the program. “Users based in the UK will be contacted by the National Crime Agency or police and warned about engaging in cyber crime. Information relating to those based overseas is being passed to international law enforcement.”

The NCA declined to say how many phony booter sites it had set up, or for how long they have been running. The NCA says hiring or launching attacks designed to knock websites or users offline is punishable in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

“Going forward, people who wish to use these services can’t be sure who is actually behind them, so why take the risk?” the NCA announcement continues.

NetWire Remote Access Trojan Maker Arrested

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/netwire-remote-access-trojan-maker-arrested.html

From Brian Krebs:

A Croatian national has been arrested for allegedly operating NetWire, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) marketed on cybercrime forums since 2012 as a stealthy way to spy on infected systems and siphon passwords. The arrest coincided with a seizure of the NetWire sales website by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While the defendant in this case hasn’t yet been named publicly, the NetWire website has been leaking information about the likely true identity and location of its owner for the past 11 years.

The article details the mistakes that led to the person’s address.

Malware Delivered through Google Search

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/02/malware-delivered-through-google-search.html

Criminals using Google search ads to deliver malware isn’t new, but Ars Technica declared that the problem has become much worse recently.

The surge is coming from numerous malware families, including AuroraStealer, IcedID, Meta Stealer, RedLine Stealer, Vidar, Formbook, and XLoader. In the past, these families typically relied on phishing and malicious spam that attached Microsoft Word documents with booby-trapped macros. Over the past month, Google Ads has become the go-to place for criminals to spread their malicious wares that are disguised as legitimate downloads by impersonating brands such as Adobe Reader, Gimp, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Slack, Tor, and Thunderbird.

[…]

It’s clear that despite all the progress Google has made filtering malicious sites out of returned ads and search results over the past couple decades, criminals have found ways to strike back. These criminals excel at finding the latest techniques to counter the filtering. As soon as Google devises a way to block them, the criminals figure out new ways to circumvent those protections.