Denial-of-Service Attacks on Investigative Media Traced to yet another Proxy Provider
On May 21, the Peruvian investigative outlet IDL Reporteros was targeted by a Layer 7 DDoS attack involving over 10,000 unique IP addresses. Four days later, Armando.info, a Venezuelan investigative media platform, faced a 48-hour long series of denial-of-service attacks.
VoIP Providers serving the Scam Empire
The call centers operating under the #ScamEmpire make millions of phone calls each year to lure new victims into the trap and pressure existing ones into “investing” their life savings. The vast majority of these calls are routed through five VoIP providers that are actively supporting the scammers and making a big cut themselves.
Disinformation, Malware and Drugs: Aeza’s cyber crime portfolio
Qurium has previously reported that the Russian disinformation campaign Doppelganger operates its infrastructure from European data centers, not from Russian soil. Data centers in Germany hosted large part of the malicious content. Qurium also revealed that the ecosystem of Doppelganger had its hub in Aeza (International), a Russian provider with European presence. Aeza was a […]
Affiliate Marketing – a central player in the scam industry
Leaked documents from the ScamEmpire shows that affiliates were rewarded in just one year with no less than 11 million USD from the scam call centers in Israel, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Ukraine for bringing victims to the scammers. The affiliates call it “traffic generation” – a legit marketing service. Without the affiliates black marketing strategies […]
#Scam Empire – inside the call centers
Today, we are following up with a second report on the #ScamEmpire investigation and invite you to explore scam call centers from inside and learn how they are organized. Meet the junior sales team responsible for onboarding, and the senior, ruthless retention team that ensures victims are drained of every last dollar—leaving them with empty savings, high-interest loans, and debts to friends and family.
#Scam Empire – Victims of profit
During the past four years, scam call centers operating from Tel Aviv (Israel), Sofia (Bulgaria), Limassol (Cyprus), Tbilisi (Georgia) and Barcelona (Spain) have stolen no less than $275 million dollars from 33,000 individuals in 33 countries. Today it is time to reveal their true identities.
When Kehr meets VexTrio
Qurium can reveal that Doppelganger is using a hidden Cloaking service, making it possible for everything from Russian disinformation to Bitcoin scams to bypass both automatic and manual moderation of content in Facebook. The service, known as “Redirect.pro” is provided by Kehr.io, an actor known for providing a variety of online scam and fraudulent services. The investigation also links Doppelganger with VexTrio, a sophisticated cyber criminal operation that has been operating for years.
The “Delete Negative Links” Industry
Qurium Media Foundation has unveiled a complex operation aimed at manipulating online content by using fraudulent copyright claims to remove legitimate information from the internet. This investigation sheds light on the unethical practices employed by the “fake DMCA requests” industry.
How Russia uses EU companies for propaganda
Almost two years ago Qurium exposed the modus operandi of Doppelganger – the Russia-based foreign influence operation that had been targeting European media with pro-Russian disinformation since the start of the war in Ukraine. Two years later, the disinformation campaign is still active but with refined methods to distribute links to fake content and new server infrastructure responsible for distributing the content.
Tell of Spring – The industry of promoting financial scams from Tel Aviv
(Note 16/7/2024: The contact details of one of the researchers of this investigation has been removed from this article) In the investigation Tell of Spring, Qurium has teamed up with cyber security researchers from French […] and Canadian Cyber Citoyen to bring light into the world of Affiliate networksAffiliate networksAct as intermediaries between the publishers […]
