Scamming the Scammers

[rfrazier]

Hi all. I was browsing YouTube just to see what might appear and I ran across this cool channel called Scammer Payback. (There may be others like it. Don't know.) The basic idea is there is a white hat hacker who goes by the name Pierogi and he spends his time scamming the scammers. Pierogi will get hold of a scam phishing email or something. Say it says it's from Paypal and there's an unauthorized transaction on his account. He'll call the scammer up at the supplied number and plays like an old lady or something. Sometimes he uses a voice changer so he sounds like an old lady. He plays along with the scammer's script, even to the point of going to the website they suggest, clicking on the link they ask for, and installing remote control software. It's funny to watch since you know he's on to the scum bags. But, for real victims, it's not funny. The scammers of this type steal $ billions every year. It's terrifying, and disgusting. Once the scammer is into Pierogi's computer, Pierogi turns the tables on them and gets into their computer. I have no idea how. He then proceeds to collect files from the scammer, turn on their webcam, delete files, and so on, hence the name of his YouTube channel. If they don't discover Pierogi, he'll eventually confront them and let them know he's in their system and he's watching them and knows exactly where they are. It's usually about that time that the scammers start cursing Pierogi out and you hear some of that on the videos. Be warned. So, it's actually entertaining to watch some of the scum of the Earth get at least some level of poetic justice. Here are a couple of videos in case you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/@ScammerPayback/videos

Scammers Flagged this video down

Destroying this Disgusting Scammer!

I say way to go Pierogi. Make the world a better place.

Apparently some of them are using Anydesk for remote control. I've had some experience with things like TeamViewer, VNC, and GoToMyPC, etc. If you know how Pierogi is able to turn the tables on the attackers through Anydesk, It would be interesting to know.

Also, one of their videos says that AI is now giving the scammers a hand. Not only can Chat GPT rewrite their scripts, but voice cloning technology can clone your voice with just a few seconds of the original from you. Then they can use your voice to scam other people you know. Pretty scary. For the moment, I can't even really figure out HOW to warn semi technical people about this.

Enjoy ... or not. It may not be enjoyable, but it's definitely interesting.

May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. Ron

 

[miquelfire]

These scam baiters are so well known in the scammer's world that you'll sometimes see them try and guess who's wasting their time when they pick up on it. Scammer Payback is the most interesting one of the ones I know about, though I like Pleasant Green stuff as well (he normally doesn't do the whole call thing, but his channel leans more on non call stuff).

Jim Browning most likely is the one who found how to reverse the connection in the first place, and I think at this point, Pierogi and his team have a deal with AnyDesk that may give him more power. I think I noticed a video where he steered the scammer away from another remote desktop software to AnyDesk.

I think I saw my first video of this type long before Covid.

 

[rfrazier]

Jim Browning most likely is the one who found how to reverse the connection in the first place

Interesting. I'm not familiar with his work, but that strategy is brilliant. Dear readers, take note. If you EVER install remote control software on your computer, even for legitimate purposes, reverse connections may be possible. Check EVERY setting and security function in the remote control system. The same goes for Zoom calls. It can do remote control too during screen sharing. NEVER "give control" to anyone whom you don't know explicitly and know exactly that they can be trusted with control of YOUR PC and what they intend to do. It only takes someone seconds to change your passwords and install back doors in your system, as you'll see Pierogi do to other people (who definitely deserve it). I know from personal experience that TeamViewer likes to leave a process running in the background just in case you have a burning desire to "dial in" to your PC after you've left for the day. I have to shut that down after every TeamViewer session helping a family member, etc. You also have to poke around and see what it's auto starting on boot after you install it. In my case, I disabled all auto start sequences. I want TeamViewer when I want it, not otherwise. Also, if you watch Pierogi's videos, note that he will sometimes ask the scammer "can you see my screen" and they always say, "no, I cannot see your screen", a total lie.

Coincidentally, I found this video in Pierogi's list after I read @miquelfire 's post. It mention's Jim Browning's name.

Jim Browning Teaches Me How To Fight Scammers

May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. Ron

 

[SeanBZA]

Yes, often relies on the scammers using pirated software ( of course, why pay when you can download a torrent of it) that is both outdated and also has known bugs that allow escalation.

I used to have to manage a few nearly headless computers, running a telephone management system, running on Win98 ( well into the Win7 era), and used TinyVNC, because the Win98 client was still around, and would talk to the WinXP and Win7 clients as well. Zero security, but always done inside the network, and never exposed to the wild world at all, just saving me having to walk down to the computer to print a report. Win98 machine as locked down as I could make it, removed as much of IE as possible, and removed pretty much all other parts of Win98 as well, though it had a full set of every patch for 98SE up to EOL applied to it, including the emergency ones that came out.

Printer was a HP4200DN, using the HP 4MV Postscript driver, as that spoke PCL5, and so long as it could connect on 9100 the PC thought it was a printer, and happily accepted all the upgrades that kept the same PCL5 language support, and the same IP as well. Had to, not bought software, and a whole set of stuff about why we could not upgrade, due to the supplier of the PBX being done over by the BSA for piracy of the software, and having to pay a massive fine, but could keep the existing client base at the last pirated version.

Note PBX supplier was the government owned telco, so you can guess the headaches, plus all the other pirated versions they had came with all sorts of malware in the installer for some reason. Manual edits of call rates tables, and call area upgrades, were done annually, though simplest to edit the database manually, and group all calls into local, non local, cellular, and International, and use the peak rate for each. Only 4 tables then, 5 minutes of work at rate change, as it was used more for call tracking than call cost.