Telekopye transitions to focusing on vacationers by way of lodge reserving rip-off

The rising reputation of on-line marketplaces has attracted fraudsters preying on unsuspecting patrons and sellers, trying to rating fee card data somewhat than to strike a discount. ESET researchers have discovered that one such organized scammer community – which makes use of Telekopye, a toolkit found by ESET Analysis in 2023 – has expanded its operations to focus on customers of common lodging reserving platforms.

Final 12 months, we printed a two-part blogpost sequence on Telekopye, a Telegram-based toolkit cybercriminals use to rip-off individuals on on-line marketplaces. The first part targeted on Telekopye’s key options, whereas the second part examined the inside workings of the affiliated rip-off teams. On this blogpost, we comply with up on what has modified in Telekopye operations since our final publication, primarily based on our continued monitoring. We glance into how these scammer teams have branched out to focusing on Reserving.com and Airbnb, in addition to their varied different efforts to optimize their operations and maximize monetary acquire. Final however not least, we offer steering on how one can keep protected against these scams.

We introduced our up to date findings on Telekopye on the Virus Bulletin conference on October 2^nd, 2024, and in our white paper, which you’ll learn in full here. The paper was additionally printed on the Virus Bulletin website.

Key factors of this blogpost:

• ESET Analysis shares up to date findings on Telekopye, a rip-off toolkit designed to assist cybercriminals defraud individuals on on-line marketplaces.
• Whereas our earlier analysis explored the technical and organizational background of Telekopye scams, our newest analysis describes the scammers’ varied efforts to maximise their monetary positive aspects – increasing their sufferer pool, benefiting from seasonal alternatives, and bettering their instruments and operations.
• Most notably, Telekopye teams have expanded their focusing on to common lodging reserving platforms, comparable to Reserving.com and Airbnb.
• This new rip-off state of affairs comes with a focusing on twist, using compromised accounts of professional motels and lodging suppliers.
• These scams have been particularly prevalent in the summertime vacation season within the focused areas, surpassing Telekopye market scams, based on ESET telemetry.

Telekopye overview

Telekopye is a toolkit that operates as a Telegram bot, primarily serving as a Swiss Military knife for turning on-line market scams into an organized illicit enterprise. It’s utilized by dozens of rip-off teams, with as much as hundreds of members, to steal hundreds of thousands from Mammoths, as they name the focused patrons and sellers. Neanderthals, as we name the scammers, require little to no technical information – Telekopye takes care of all the pieces in a matter of seconds.

Found by ESET Analysis in 2023, Telekopye has been in use since not less than 2016, with victims everywhere in the world. A number of leads level to Russia because the nation of origin of the bot’s creator(s) and likewise the scammers utilizing it. Telekopye is designed to focus on a big number of on-line companies in Europe and North America, comparable to OLX, Vinted, eBay, Wallapop, and others. On the time of writing, we have now counted roughly 90 completely different companies being focused by the scams.

Neanderthals – members of any Telegram group using Telekopye – acquire entry to the bot’s UI, which permits easy era of phishing emails, SMS messages, internet pages, and different options.

Telekopye teams have a business-like operation, with a transparent hierarchy, outlined roles, inside practices – together with admission and mentoring processes for newcomers – mounted working hours, and fee payouts for Telekopye directors. The Staff performing the scams should flip over any delicate data stolen, and don’t really steal any cash – that’s managed by different roles within the group. Every group retains a clear chat of all transactions, seen to all members.

Neanderthals make the most of two primary eventualities for focusing on on-line marketplaces – one the place they pose as sellers and one other, rather more widespread, the place they pose as patrons. Each eventualities finish with the sufferer/Mammoth getting into fee card data or on-line banking credentials right into a phishing internet web page mimicking a fee gateway.

Just lately, Telekopye teams have expanded their focusing on by including assist for scamming customers of common on-line platforms for reserving lodging, which we cowl within the following part.

Branching out to lodging reserving platforms

In 2024, Telekopye teams have expanded their scamming playbook with schemes focusing on customers of common on-line platforms for lodge and condo reservations, comparable to Reserving.com and Airbnb. They’ve additionally elevated the sophistication of their sufferer choice and focusing on.

Focusing on with a twist

On this new rip-off state of affairs, Neanderthals contact a focused person of certainly one of these platforms, claiming that there’s a problem with the person’s reserving fee. The message comprises a hyperlink to a well-crafted, legitimate-looking internet web page mimicking the abused platform.

The web page comprises prefilled details about a reserving, such because the check-in and checkout dates, value, and placement. This comes with a troubling twist: the data offered on the fraudulent pages matches actual bookings made by the focused customers.

The Neanderthals obtain this by using compromised accounts of professional motels and lodging suppliers on the platforms, which they almost definitely entry by way of stolen credentials bought on cybercriminal boards. Utilizing their entry to those accounts, scammers single out customers who just lately booked a keep and haven’t paid but – or paid very just lately – and make contact with them by way of in-platform chat. Relying on the platform and the Mammoth’s settings, this results in the Mammoth receiving an e mail or SMS from the reserving platform.

This makes the rip-off a lot tougher to identify, as the data offered is personally related to the victims, arrives by way of the anticipated communication channel, and the linked, pretend web sites look as anticipated. The one seen signal of one thing being amiss are the web sites’ URLs, which don’t match these of the impersonated, professional web sites. Neanderthals might also use their very own e mail addresses for the preliminary communication (somewhat than the compromised accounts), through which case the emails is likely to be extra simply acknowledged as malicious.

As soon as the goal fills out the shape on the phishing web page (Determine 1), they’re dropped at the ultimate step of the “reserving” – a type requesting fee card data (Determine 2). As within the market scams, card particulars entered into the shape are harvested by the Neanderthals and used to steal cash from the Mammoth’s card.

In accordance with ESET telemetry, one of these rip-off began gaining traction in 2024. As seen in Determine 3, the accommodation-themed scams noticed a pointy uptick in July, surpassing the unique Telekopye market scams for the primary time, with greater than double the detections throughout that month. In August and September, the detection ranges for the 2 classes evened out.

As this enhance coincides with the summer time vacation season within the focused areas – prime time for benefiting from individuals reserving stays – it stays to be seen whether or not this development will proceed. Wanting on the general 2024 information, we are able to see that these newer scams have amassed roughly half of the detection numbers of {the marketplace} variants. That is noteworthy contemplating that the newer scams deal with two platforms solely, in comparison with the wide range of on-line marketplaces focused by Telekopye.

Superior Telekopye options

Apart from diversifying their goal portfolio, Neanderthals have additionally improved their instruments and operations to extend their monetary returns.

All through our monitoring of Telekopye, we’ve noticed that completely different Telegram teams implement their very own superior options into the toolkit, geared toward dashing up the rip-off course of, bettering communication with targets, defending phishing web sites in opposition to disruption by opponents, and different objectives.

Automated phishing web page era

To hurry up the method of making rip-off supplies for posing as patrons on marketplaces, Neanderthals applied internet scrapers for common focused platforms. With these, solely the URL to the product is required, as an alternative of getting to manually fill out a questionnaire in regards to the focused Mammoth and product in query. Telekopye parses the online web page and extracts all obligatory data mechanically, offering a big speedup for the scammers.

Interactive chatbot with on-the-fly translation

Neanderthals keep a big assortment of predefined solutions to questions generally requested by Mammoths. These are translated into varied languages and stored as a part of inside documentation, with the translations perfected through the years.

Neanderthals sometimes use these predefined phrases to attempt to direct the Mammoth to the phishing web site, which comes with a chatbot within the decrease proper nook. Any message the Mammoth enters into the chat is forwarded to the Neanderthal’s Telegram chat, the place it’s mechanically translated. Automated translation of Neanderthals’ messages shouldn’t be supported – Neanderthals translate their messages manually, normally utilizing DeepL. Determine 3 reveals how such an interplay seems from the Neanderthal’s and Mammoth’s factors of view.

Anti-DDoS measures

The overwhelming majority of the phishing web sites are serviced by Cloudflare, counting on that service’s added safety, primarily in opposition to crawlers and computerized evaluation. Curiously, a few of the Telekopye phishing web sites additionally include DDoS safety included. In accordance with the Neanderthals’ information base, which we obtained by infiltrating their ranks, this function goals to guard in opposition to assaults by rival teams. These are typically launched as a method to disrupt a competitor’s operations for a brief interval.

Regulation enforcement operations

In late 2023, after ESET Analysis had printed its two-part sequence on Telekopye, Czech and Ukrainian police arrested tens of cybercriminals using Telekopye, together with the important thing gamers, in two joint operations. Each operations have been aimed in opposition to an unspecified variety of Telekopye teams, which had collected not less than €5 million (roughly US$5.5 million) since 2021, primarily based on police estimates.

Apart from the plain success in disrupting such prison actions, the arrests offered new insights into the teams’ workings, most notably recruitment and employment practices. The teams in query have been managed, from devoted workspaces, by middle-aged males from Japanese Europe and West and Central Asia. They recruited individuals in troublesome life conditions, by job portal postings promising “simple cash”, in addition to by focusing on technically expert international college students at universities.

Some perpetrators confessed that in addition they participated in one other rip-off group, much like the Telekopye ones, that utilized name facilities. The police discovered that the recruits in that operation have been usually stripped of their passports and private IDs to make quitting very troublesome. Additional, the managers typically went as far as to threaten the workers and their members of the family. This chilling growth places these operations into a totally completely different gentle.

Suggestions

One of the best ways to remain protected in opposition to scams pushed by Telekopye is being conscious of Neanderthals’ techniques and exercising warning on the affected platforms. Apart from understanding what crimson flags to concentrate to, we strongly advocate utilizing a good antimalware resolution in your system to step in in the event you do find yourself being lured to a phishing web site.

On-line market scams

• At all times confirm the individual you might be speaking with, primarily their historical past on the platform, age of their account, score, and placement – a location too distant, a recent account with no historical past, or a foul score is likely to be indicators of a scammer.
• With the enhancements in machine translation, messages from a scammer may not increase any crimson flags when it comes to grammar. Fairly than specializing in the language, deal with the dialog itself – overly keen or assertive communication ought to increase some considerations.
• Hold the communication on the platform, even when the individual you’re speaking to suggests in any other case. Their unwillingness to remain on the platform must be a serious crimson flag.
• If you’re a purchaser, use safe interfaces inside the platform all through the entire shopping for course of, each time out there. In any other case, insist on in-person trade of products and cash, or prepare in your selection of dependable supply companies with the choice to pay on supply.
• If you’re a vendor, use safe interfaces inside the platform all through the entire promoting course of, each time out there. In any other case, handle supply choices your self and don’t comply with these supplied by the client.
• In the event you get to a degree the place you do go to a hyperlink despatched by the individual you might be speaking to, be sure you fastidiously verify the URL, content material, and certificates properties of the web site earlier than participating with it.

Lodging reserving scams

• Earlier than filling out any types associated to your reserving, all the time ensure you haven’t left the official web site or app of the platform in query. Being directed to an exterior URL to proceed along with your reserving and fee is an indicator of a potential rip-off.
• As a result of this rip-off makes use of compromised accounts of lodging suppliers, contacting the suppliers immediately shouldn’t be a dependable method of verifying the legitimacy of fee requests. When unsure, contact the official buyer assist of the platform (Booking.com, Airbnb) or report a safety situation (Booking.com, Airbnb).
• To guard your account from compromise, whether or not you’re reserving lodging or renting one out, use a powerful password and allow two-factor authentication wherever out there.

Conclusion

Our analysis into Telekopye actions has given us distinctive insights into these scams: we have been in a position to perceive the technical means behind the scope of the operations, the enterprise aspect of Telekopye teams, and even find out about Neanderthals themselves.

We have now described the teams’ varied efforts to maximise their monetary positive aspects, together with increasing their sufferer pool, benefiting from seasonal alternatives, and bettering their instruments and operations. Most notably, we have now detailed the Neanderthals’ latest strategy of focusing on lodging reserving platforms, which additionally comes with extra refined focusing on.

It’s value noting that we have now communicated with a number of platforms focused by Telekopye all through our analysis; they’re totally conscious of those scams and confirmed they’ve employed a number of techniques to fight them. Nevertheless, warning continues to be suggested for customers because of the variety of the scams and their steady evolution.

For any inquiries about our analysis printed on WeLiveSecurity, please contact us at threatintel@eset.com. 

ESET Analysis provides personal APT intelligence reviews and information feeds. For any inquiries about this service, go to the ESET Threat Intelligence web page.

IoCs

Recordsdata

Community

MITRE ATT&CK strategies

This desk was constructed utilizing version 15 of the MITRE ATT&CK framework.