It turns out that it’s surprisingly easy to create a fake Harvard student and get a harvard.edu email account. Scammers are using that prestigious domain name to shill brands: Basically, it appears that anyone with $300 to spare can – or could, depending on whether Harvard successfully shuts down the practice — advertise nearly anything … Read More “Using Fake Student Accounts to Shill Brands” »
Category: fraud
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Here’s a story of someone who, with three compatriots, rented textbooks from Amazon and then sold them instead of returning them. They used gift cards and prepaid credit cards to buy the books, so there was no available balance when Amazon tried to charge them the buyout price for non-returned books. They also used various … Read More “Textbook Rental Scam” »
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court just narrowed the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: In a ruling delivered today, the court sided with Van Buren and overturned his 18-month conviction. In a 37-page opinion written and delivered by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court explained that the “exceeds authorized access” language … Read More “The Supreme Court Narrowed the CFAA” »
I just co-authored a paper on the legal risks of doing machine learning research, given the current state of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Abstract: Adversarial Machine Learning is booming with ML researchers increasingly targeting commercial ML systems such as those used in Facebook, Tesla, Microsoft, IBM, Google to demonstrate vulnerabilities. In this paper, … Read More “Adversarial Machine Learning and the CFAA” »
Really interesting research: “An examination of the cryptocurrency pump and dump ecosystem“: Abstract: The surge of interest in cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of fraud. This paper examines pump and dump schemes. The recent explosion of nearly 2,000 cryptocurrencies in an unregulated environment has expanded the scope for abuse. We quantify the scope … Read More “Cryptocurrency Pump and Dump Scams” »
A federal court has ruled that violating a website’s terms of service is not “hacking” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The plaintiffs wanted to investigate possible racial discrimination in online job markets by creating accounts for fake employers and job seekers. Leading job sites have terms of service prohibiting users from supplying fake … Read More “Clarifying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act” »
SIM hijacking — or SIM swapping — is an attack where a fraudster contacts your cell phone provider and convinces them to switch your account to a phone that they control. Since your smartphone often serves as a security measure or backup verification system, this allows the fraudster to take over other accounts of yours. … Read More “SIM Hijacking” »
A malicious Chrome extension surreptitiously steals Ethereum keys and passwords: According to Denley, the extension is dangerous to users in two ways. First, any funds (ETH coins and ERC0-based tokens) managed directly inside the extension are at risk. Denley says that the extension sends the private keys of all wallets created or managed through its … Read More “Chrome Extension Stealing Cryptocurrency Keys and Passwords” »
The New Yorker has published the long and interesting story of the cybersecurity firm Tiversa. Watching “60 Minutes,” Boback saw a remarkable new business angle. Here was a multibillion-dollar industry with a near-existential problem and no clear solution. He did not know it then, but, as he turned the opportunity over in his mind, he … Read More “The Story of Tiversa” »
This is a fascinating article about a bait-and-switch Airbnb fraud. The article focuses on one particular group of scammers and how they operate, using the fact that Airbnb as a company doesn’t do much to combat fraud on its platform. But I am more interested in how the fraudsters essentially hacked the complex sociotechnical system … Read More “Details of an Airbnb Fraud” »
