November 10, 2024
Telekopye transitions to concentrating 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, seeking to rating fee card info quite than to strike a cut price. 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 fashionable lodging reserving platforms.

Final yr, we printed a two-part blogpost sequence on Telekopye, a Telegram-based toolkit cybercriminals use to rip-off individuals on on-line marketplaces. The primary half targeted on Telekopye’s key options, whereas the second half examined the internal 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, based mostly on our continued monitoring. We glance into how these scammer teams have branched out to concentrating on Reserving.com and Airbnb, in addition to their varied different efforts to optimize their operations and maximize monetary achieve. Final however not least, we offer steering on easy methods to keep shielded from these scams.

We offered our up to date findings on Telekopye on the Virus Bulletin conference on October 2nd, 2024, and in our white paper, which you’ll be able to 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 enhancing their instruments and operations.
  • Most notably, Telekopye teams have expanded their concentrating on to fashionable lodging reserving platforms, akin to Reserving.com and Airbnb.
  • This new rip-off state of affairs comes with a concentrating on twist, using compromised accounts of reliable inns 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 1000’s 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 data – Telekopye takes care of every little thing in a matter of seconds.

Found by ESET Analysis in 2023, Telekopye has been in use since at the least 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, akin to OLX, Vinted, eBay, Wallapop, and others. On the time of writing, we’ve counted roughly 90 completely different companies being focused by the scams.

Neanderthals – members of any Telegram group using Telekopye – achieve entry to the bot’s UI, which allows easy technology of phishing emails, SMS messages, net 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 – fastened working hours, and fee payouts for Telekopye directors. The Staff performing the scams should flip over any delicate info stolen, and don’t truly 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 major situations for concentrating on on-line marketplaces – one the place they pose as sellers and one other, far more widespread, the place they pose as patrons. Each situations finish with the sufferer/Mammoth getting into fee card info or on-line banking credentials right into a phishing net web page mimicking a fee gateway.

Not too long ago, Telekopye teams have expanded their concentrating on by including assist for scamming customers of fashionable 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 concentrating on customers of fashionable on-line platforms for lodge and residence reservations, akin to Reserving.com and Airbnb. They’ve additionally elevated the sophistication of their sufferer choice and concentrating on.

Concentrating on with a twist

On this new rip-off state of affairs, Neanderthals contact a focused person of one among 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 net 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 site. This comes with a troubling twist: the data supplied on the fraudulent pages matches actual bookings made by the focused customers.

The Neanderthals obtain this by using compromised accounts of reliable inns and lodging suppliers on the platforms, which they most definitely entry by way of stolen credentials bought on cybercriminal boards. Utilizing their entry to those accounts, scammers single out customers who not too long ago booked a keep and haven’t paid but – or paid very not too long ago – 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 more durable to identify, as the data supplied is personally related to the victims, arrives by way of the anticipated communication channel, and the linked, faux 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, reliable web sites. Neanderthals might also use their very own e mail addresses for the preliminary communication (quite than the compromised accounts), wherein 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 delivered to the ultimate step of the “reserving” – a kind requesting fee card info (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.

Determine 1. Instance of a faux Reserving.com kind created by Telekopye
Determine 2. Instance of a faux Reserving.com fee kind created by Telekopye

In accordance with ESET telemetry, this kind of 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 season vacation season within the focused areas – prime time for benefiting from individuals reserving stays – it stays to be seen whether or not this pattern will proceed. Trying on the total 2024 knowledge, 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 concentrate on two platforms solely, in comparison with the big variety of on-line marketplaces focused by Telekopye.

Determine 3. Kinds of on-line companies focused by Telekopye in 2024, seven-day shifting common detection pattern

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, enhancing communication with targets, defending phishing web sites towards disruption by opponents, and different objectives.

Automated phishing web page technology

To hurry up the method of making rip-off supplies for posing as patrons on marketplaces, Neanderthals applied net scrapers for fashionable focused platforms. With these, solely the URL to the product is required, as a substitute of getting to manually fill out a questionnaire concerning the focused Mammoth and product in query. Telekopye parses the net web page and extracts all crucial info robotically, offering a big speedup for the scammers.

Interactive chatbot with on-the-fly translation

Neanderthals preserve a big assortment of predefined solutions to questions generally requested by Mammoths. These are translated into varied languages and saved as a part of inside documentation, with the translations perfected over time.

Neanderthals usually 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 robotically translated. Computerized translation of Neanderthals’ messages just isn’t supported – Neanderthals translate their messages manually, often utilizing DeepL. Determine 3 exhibits how such an interplay appears to be like from the Neanderthal’s and Mammoth’s factors of view.

Determine 4. Chatbot instance from Neanderthal’s (left) and Mammoth’s (proper) factors of view. Neanderthal messages have been machine translated from Russian to English.

Anti-DDoS measures

The overwhelming majority of the phishing web sites are serviced by Cloudflare, counting on that service’s added safety, primarily towards crawlers and automated evaluation. Curiously, among the Telekopye phishing web sites additionally include DDoS safety included. In accordance with the Neanderthals’ data base, which we obtained by infiltrating their ranks, this function goals to guard towards assaults by rival teams. These are generally 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 towards an unspecified variety of Telekopye teams, which had collected at the least €5 million (roughly US$5.5 million) since 2021, based mostly on police estimates.

Apart from the apparent success in disrupting such legal actions, the arrests supplied 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 Jap Europe and West and Central Asia. They recruited individuals in tough life conditions, via job portal postings promising “simple cash”, in addition to by concentrating on technically expert international college students at universities.

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

Suggestions

The easiest way to remain protected towards scams pushed by Telekopye is being conscious of Neanderthals’ ways 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 gadget to step in if you happen to do find yourself being lured to a phishing web site.

On-line market scams

  • All the time confirm the particular person you’re speaking with, primarily their historical past on the platform, age of their account, ranking, and site – a location too far-off, a recent account with no historical past, or a nasty ranking is likely to be indicators of a scammer.
  • With the enhancements in machine translation, messages from a scammer won’t increase any crimson flags when it comes to grammar. Relatively than specializing in the language, concentrate on the dialog itself – overly keen or assertive communication ought to increase some considerations.
  • Maintain the communication on the platform, even when the particular person you’re speaking to suggests in any other case. Their unwillingness to remain on the platform must be a significant crimson flag.
  • In case you are a purchaser, use safe interfaces throughout the platform all through the entire shopping for course of, every time accessible. In any other case, insist on in-person alternate of products and cash, or prepare on your selection of dependable supply companies with the choice to pay on supply.
  • In case you are a vendor, use safe interfaces throughout the platform all through the entire promoting course of, every time accessible. In any other case, handle supply choices your self and don’t conform to these supplied by the customer.
  • Should you get to some extent the place you do go to a hyperlink despatched by the particular person you’re speaking to, you should definitely rigorously test the URL, content material, and certificates properties of the web site earlier than participating with it.

Lodging reserving scams

  • Earlier than filling out any varieties associated to your reserving, at all times 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 attainable rip-off.
  • As a result of this rip-off makes use of compromised accounts of lodging suppliers, contacting the suppliers straight just isn’t a dependable method of verifying the legitimacy of fee requests. When doubtful, contact the official buyer assist of the platform (Booking.com, Airbnb) or report a safety challenge (Booking.com, Airbnb).
  • To guard your account from compromise, whether or not you’re reserving lodging or renting one out, use a robust password and allow two-factor authentication wherever accessible.

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 facet of Telekopye teams, and even study Neanderthals themselves.

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

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

For any inquiries about our analysis printed on WeLiveSecurity, please contact us at [email protected]
ESET Analysis presents personal APT intelligence stories and knowledge feeds. For any inquiries about this service, go to the ESET Threat Intelligence web page.

IoCs

Information

SHA-1  Filename  Detection  Description 
E815A879F7F30FB492D4043F0F8C67584B869F32  rip-off.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.B  Telekopye bot. 
378699D285325E905375AF33FDEB3276D479A0E2  rip-off.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.B  Telekopye bot. 
242CE4AF01E24DB054077BCE3C86494D0284B781  123.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.A  Telekopye bot. 
9D1EE6043A8B6D81C328C3B84C94D7DCB8611262  mell.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.B  Telekopye bot. 
B0189F20983A891D0B9BEA2F77B64CC5A15E364B  neddoss.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.A  Telekopye bot. 
E39A30AD22C327BBBD2B02D73B1BC8CDD3E999EA  nscode.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.A  Telekopye bot. 
285E0573EF667C6FB7AEB1608BA1AF9E2C86B452  tinkoff.php  PHP/HackTool.Telekopye.A  Telekopye bot. 

Community

IP Area Internet hosting supplier First seen Particulars
N/A  3-dsecurepay[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024⁠-⁠05⁠-⁠30  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  approveine[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024⁠-⁠06⁠-⁠28  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  audittravelerbookdetails[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-06-01  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  btsdostavka-uz[.]ru  TIMEWEB-RU  2024-01-02  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  burdchoureserdoc[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-31  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  check-629807-id[.]prime  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-30  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  contact-click2399[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-26  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  contact-click7773[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-30  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  get3ds-safe[.]information  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-31  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  hostelguest[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-30  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  order-9362[.]click on  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-29  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  shiptakes[.]information  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-29  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  quickroombook[.]com  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024⁠-⁠06⁠-⁠02  Telekopye phishing area. 
N/A  validation-confi[.]information  Cloudflare, Inc. 2024-05-29  Telekopye phishing area. 

MITRE ATT&CK methods

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

Tactic  ID  Identify  Description 
Reconnaissance  T1589  Collect Sufferer Identification Info  Telekopye is used to assemble fee card particulars, cellphone numbers, e mail addresses, and many others. by way of phishing net pages. 
Useful resource Improvement  T1583.001  Purchase Infrastructure: Domains  Telekopye operators register their very own domains. 
T1585  Set up Accounts  Telekopye operators set up accounts at on-line marketplaces. 
T1585.002  Set up Accounts: E-mail Accounts  Telekopye operators arrange e mail addresses related to the domains they register. 
T1586.002  Compromise Accounts: E-mail Accounts  Telekopye operators use compromised e mail accounts to extend their stealthiness. 
T1587.001  Develop Capabilities: Malware  Telekopye is customized malware. 
T1588.002  Get hold of Capabilities: Instrument  Telekopye operators use further bots to launder cash, scrape market analysis, and implement DDoS safety. 
Preliminary Entry  T1566.002  Phishing: Spearphishing Hyperlink  Telekopye sends e mail or SMS messages that comprise hyperlinks to phishing web sites. 
Assortment  T1056.003  Enter Seize: Internet Portal Seize  Internet pages created by Telekopye seize delicate info and report it to the operators.