The hunt of the internet bad guys

Gizmodo has an article about the hunt of the bad internet guys.
Quite a few stuff, other known other new tricks are revealed there.

"Essentially, these scammers can ruin their victims' lives and leave them totally blind to the fact that they opened the front door.

An Elusive Endgame

Unfortunately there's not too much that Segura can do other than simply raise awareness of active threats. Just putting in calls to the necessary authorities can occasionally shut down the phony sites, many of which operate out of India and pay workers more than they'd see in more legitimate jobs. Thanks to the efforts of Segura (and other security experts like him), the FTC launched a major crackdown on these very same tech support scams just a few years ago.

But while surges of enforcement are certainly helpful, the effects don't last long. Speaking with Gizmodo, Segura explained:

The crackdown really just shuts down some of [the scammer] domains or freezes some of their assets, and then these guys will just start on new websites the next day. It's not like they're going to jail, so they're just constantly switching between the dozens and dozens of websites that they register every day.

I think part of the problem is that some of the local police can be bribed, so [the scammers] have very little to worry about. And if something does happen, they can always just say it was a bad technician in their crew who's now fired. We won't do it again. And that's it.

And even though there's some personal satisfaction to be found in messing with these fake call centers a few times, you're playing a dangerous game:

A few [scammers] will get pissed off easily because some guys on the internet think they're avengers, so they'll ridicule them and waste their time on purpose. When they've been trolled by all sorts of people, they just don't have the patience and will just trash your computer. So I'm always cautious to keep it nice and clean with them; I don't want to insult them. I'd rather do it the proper way. But of course, they're still criminals. They're still scammers.

So at the end of the day, it pays to be kind. That's the only way Segura can get all the information he needs to expose their nefarious practices far and wide.

Almost as quickly as Segura an expose a scam, though, a new one will pop up in its place. A recent variant of the tech support scam actually attempts to convince unsuspecting Netflix users to call in to the fake hotline themselves—after entering their Netflix login information. If followed, this dastardly little trick could hit you pretty much anywhere it hurts, stealing money for fake services and your identity. And now, this same style of scam comes in way more flavors than just Netflix.

The bad guys keep innovating, but thankfully, Segura and others like him will always be on guard to raise the alarm. In the meantime, just be careful what you click—and who you let into your virtual home."