Internet Security

Chrome Extensions Get Security, Privacy and Performance Boost

Posted on by Andy Miller

Following the introduction last month of Google Chrome 69’s better password protection, Google has announced that Chrome 70 will bring trustworthy extensions by default.

What Are Extensions?

The Chrome extension system, introduced to the browser nearly a decade ago, has enabled the introduction of 180,000 different extensions which are small, bolt-on software programs that allow Google Chrome users to customize their browsing experience through functionality and behaviour that suits their individual needs or preferences.

Extensions are typically built using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and are available in the Chrome Web Store. Google says that the dual mission of its extension team is to “help users tailor Chrome’s functionality to their individual needs and interests, and to empower developers to build rich and useful extensions”.

What’s Been The Problem?

One of the main problems with Chrome extensions has been that remotely hosted code in some extensions can be changed, used to manipulate websites, and used for criminal purposes. For example, Chrome extensions have increasingly been used to hide malware, even when they’ve been downloaded from the official Chrome store, and Google has reported a 70% increase in malicious extension installs over the last two and a half years.

For Google, this has created a lack of trust among users, has led to worries about transparency and the scope of their extensions’ capabilities and data access, has generated bad publicity, and has made Google’s own extension review process more complex, costly, and time-consuming.

Improvements

Google says that it has already addressed some of the security, privacy and performance concerns through the launch of out-of-process iframes, the removal of inline installation, and advancements in the detection and blocking of malicious extensions using machine learning.

New code reliability requirements also mean that Chrome Web Store will no longer allow extensions with obfuscated code. This is essentially code that’s difficult to understand and can be used to hide malicious code, and its complexity makes Google’s review process more difficult.

Google has also announced that further improvements will be made to Chrome extensions in Chrome 70 that should go even further in addressing these issues. For example, improvements will include:

  • Better controls for host permissions. This means giving users the choice to restrict extension host access to a custom list of sites, or to configure extensions to require a click to gain access to the current page.
  • Required 2-step verification (in 2019) for Chrome Web Store developer accounts, in order to improve security.
  • The introduction of Manifest v3 to make the writing of a secure and performant extension much easier.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Google Chrome is the most widely used browser, favoured by 60% of browser users. Bearing in mind the 70% increase in malicious extension installs over the last two and a half years, some would say that these mainly security-based improvements to extensions are certainly necessary, and are long overdue. Bad extensions have proven to be the weak link in a strong browser and have provided a loophole that has been exploited by cyber-criminals enabling them to link computers to botnets, steal personal details, and enable crypto-currency mining on a large scale.

Businesses using Google Chrome should now get some reassurance that Google is plugging the security holes that some extensions have created, which should mean one less thing to worry about for the time-being in the ongoing battle with evolving and potentially costly cyber threats.

New Chrome 69 Creates Better Passwords, Among Other Features

Posted on by Andy Miller

Chrome 69, the latest version of the Google browser which is now 10 years old, has a number of value-adding new features, including the ability to automatically generate strong passwords.

Improved Password Manager

This latest version of Chrome has an improved password manager that is perhaps more fitting of the browser that is favoured by 60% of browser users, many of whom still rely upon using very weak passwords. For example, the most commonly used passwords in 2017 were reported to be 123456, password, 12345678 and qwerty.

The updated password manger in Chrome 69 hopes to make serious inroads into this most simple of human errors by recommending strong passwords when users sign up for websites or update settings. The Chrome 69 password manager will suggest passwords incorporating at least one lowercase character, one uppercase character and at least one number, and where websites require symbols in passwords it will be able to add these. Users will be able to manually edit the Chrome-generated password, and when Google is generating the password, every time users click away from its suggestion, a new one is created. Chrome 69 will then store the password on a laptop or phone so that users don’t have to write it down or try and remember it (as long as they are using the same device).

Other Features

Other new and improved features of Chrome 69 include:

Faster and more accurate form-filling: Google says that because information such as passwords, addresses and credit card numbers are saved in a user’s Google account and can be accessed directly from the from the Chrome toolbar, Chrome can make it much easier and faster to fill-out online checkout forms.

Combined search and address bar (improvements): In Chrome 69, users will have a combined search and address bar (the Omnibox), which shows the answers directly in the address bar without users having to open a new tab, thereby making it more convenient. Also, if there are several tabs open across three browser windows, for example, a search in the Omnibox will tell users if that website’s already open and will allow navigation straight to it with “Switch to tab”. Google says that users will soon also be able to search files from your Google Drive directly in the Omnibox too.

CSS Snap: This feature allows developers to create smoother browsing experiences. It does this by telling the browser where to stop after each scrolling operation, and is particularly useful for displaying carousels and paginated sections to guide users to the next slide or section.

Put The www. Back!

There was some controversy and protests from some Chrome users over the way that, in order to take account of the limited space on mobile screens, and for greater security (to stop confusion with phishing URLs), version 69 of Chrome has been made to no longer show the www. part of a URL (and the m. on mobiles) in the address bar. It is worth mentioning at this point that Apple’s Safari also hides URL characters. Some critics of Google’s move to this system have said that it could confuse users into thinking that they’re at the wrong website.

Other Criticism

Some more cynical / informed commentators have suggested that the change in URL display is actually more to do with AMP system and AMP cache which benefits the advertising side of Google’s business.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The changes in Chrome 69 that encourage and facilitate the use of much stronger passwords may be a little overdue, but it has to be good news for the security of all Chrome users. The speedier form-filling will also be a time-saver in an age where many people now carry out many of their daily transactions online and on mobile devices.

Even though stronger passwords are a good thing, security has now moved on again from those, because they have been found to be less secure than biometrics and other access methods.

The new Chrome 69 has been released, but so has the beta version of Chrome 70, and it remains to be seen how security is upgraded yet again in subsequent versions as cyber-crime threats become more wide-ranging and sophisticated.

Find Out What ‘Deep Fakes’ Are and Why They’re A Threat

Posted on by Andy Miller

Deep fakes are digitally manipulated videos that have been created using deep learning technology to make the subject of the video (often a famous person) say anything the video maker wants them to say, even incorporating the style and facial expressions of another person.

Example

An example here is a video that demonstrates the technique, and features a fake video of Barack Obama saying things that he would never normally (publicly) say. Example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUC4m6w1wo

Improving Fast

The technique, which had its less than auspicious first uses in pornography, where porn actors were made to look and sound like famous people, has much improved and become arguably more convincing as deep learning and AI have led to more seamless and convincing results.

Style Transfer

The development of the technology used in deep fake videos has improved to the point where even a person’s style can be superimposed and incorporated. An example of this can be seen in videos created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who have been able to use artificial intelligence technology to transfer the facial expressions of one person in a video to another.

See this example on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehD3C60i6lw where John Oliver is made to reflect the style of Stephen Colbert, a daffodil is made to bloom (time lapse) the same way as a hibiscus, and Barack Obama is given the same facial expressions and style as Dr Martin Luther King and President Donald Trump.

What’s The Danger?

The danger, according to US lawmakers and intelligence organisations, is that videos could be made by adversarial nation states and used as another tool in disinformation campaigns. For example, at key moments, politicians and other influential figures could be made to appear to make false and /or inflammatory statements that could be believed by less politically aware recipients. In short, these videos could be used to influence opinions e.g. at election-time, and could afford a foreign power a way to interfere that relies upon human error – the same thing that many successful cyber attacks have relied upon.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With the US Midterm elections on the way, with allegations of Russian interference and possible collusion still hanging over President Trump’s head, and with some evidence that Facebook was used by a foreign power to try an influence the last US election result, it is understandable that the US government is worried about any tools that could be used to interfere in their democratic process. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft has seized 6 phishing domains that allegedly belong to Russian government hackers, and has introduced a pilot AccountGuard secure email service for election candidates.

If the technology behind deep fake videos keeps improving, it is possible to see it being used as another tool in other types of cyber-crime.

There is, of course, an upside and some ways that deep fake technology can be used in a positive way. For example, deep fake could be used to help film-makers to reduce costs and speed up work, make humorous videos and advertisements, and even help in corporate training.

UK Government Guilty of Mass Surveillance Human Rights Breach

Posted on by Andy Miller

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has found the UK government guilty of violating the right to privacy of citizens under the European convention because the safeguards within the government’s system for bulk interception of communications were not strong enough to provide guarantees against abuse.

The Case

The case which led to the verdict, was brought against the UK government by 14 human rights groups, journalism organisations, and privacy organisations such as Amnesty International, Big Brother Watch and Liberty in the wake of the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden, specifically that GCHQ was secretly intercepting communications traffic via fibre-optic undersea cables.

In essence, although the court, which voted by a majority of five to two votes against the UK government, accepted that police and intelligence agencies need covert surveillance powers to tackle threats, those threats do not justify spying on every citizen without adequate protections.

Three Main Points

The ruling against the UK government in this case centred on three points – firstly the regime for bulk interception of communications (under section 8(4) of RIPA), secondly the system for collection communications data (under Chapter II of RIPA), and finally the intelligence sharing programme.

The UK government was found to breach the convention on the first 2 points, but the ECHR didn’t find a legal problem with GCHQ’s regime for sharing sensitive digital intelligence with foreign governments. Also, the court decided that bulk interception with tighter safeguards was permissible.

Key Points

Some of the key points highlighted by the rulings against the UK government, in this case, are that:

  • Bulk interception is not unlawful in itself, but the oversight of that apparatus was not up to scratch in this case.
  • The system governing the bulk interception of communications is not capable of keeping interference to what is strictly necessary for a democratic society.
  • There was concern that the government could examine the who, when and where of a communication, apparently without restriction i.e. problems with safeguards around ‘related data’. The worry is that related communications data is capable of painting an intimate picture of a person e.g. through mapping social networks, location tracking and insights into who they interacted with.
  • There had been a violation of Article 10 relating to the right to freedom of expression for two of the parties (journalists), because of the lack of sufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalist material.

Privacy Groups Triumphant

Privacy groups were clearly very pleased with the outcome. For example, the Director of Big Brother Watch is reported as saying that the judgement was a step towards protecting millions of law-abiding citizens from unjustified intrusion.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Like the courts, we are all aware that we face threats of terrorism, online sexual abuse and other crimes, and that advancements in technology have made it easier for terrorists and criminals to evade detection, and that surveillance is likely to be a useful technique to help protect us all, our families and our businesses.

However, we should have a right to privacy, particularly if we feel strongly that there is no reason for the government to be collecting and sharing information about us that, with the addition of related data, could identify us not just to the government but to any other parties who come into contact with that data.

The reality of 2018 is that we now live in a country where in addition to CCTV surveillance, we have the right to surveillance set in law. The UK ‘Snooper’s Charter’ / Investigatory Powers Act became law in November 2016 and was designed to extend the reach of state surveillance in Britain. The Charter requires web and phone companies (by law) to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months, and also to give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to that data. The Charter also means that security services and police can hack into computers and phones and collect communications data in bulk, and that judges can sign off police requests to view journalists’ call and web records.

Although businesses and many citizens prefer to operate in a safe and predictable environment, and trust governments to operate surveillance just for this purpose and with the right safeguards in place, many are not prepared to blindly accept the situation. Many people and businesses (communications companies, social media, and web companies) are uneasy with the extent of the legislation and what it forces companies to do, how necessary it is, and what effect it will have on businesses publicly known to be snooping on their customers on behalf of the state.

This latest ruling against the government won’t stop bulk surveillance or the sharing of data with intelligence partners, but many see it as a blow against a law that makes them uneasy in a time when GDPR is supposed to have given us power over what happens to our data.

Only 32% of Emails Clean Enough To ‘Make It’

Posted on by Andy Miller

A bi-annual study by FireEye has found that less than a third of over half a billion emails analysed were considered clean enough not to be blocked from entering our inboxes.

Phishing Problem Evident

The study found that even though 9 out of 10 emails that are blocked by email security / anti-virus didn’t actually contain malware, 81% of the blocked emails were phishing attacks. This figure is double that of the previous 6 months.

Webroot’s Quarterly Threat Trends Report data, for example, shows that 1.39 million new phishing sites are created each month, and that this figure was even as high as 2.3 million in May last year. It is likely that phishing attacks have increased so much because organisations have been focusing too much of their security efforts on detecting malware. Also, human error is likely to be a weak link in any company, and phishing has proven to be very successful, sometimes delivering results in a second wave as well as the first attack. For example, in the wake of the TSB bank system meltdown, phishing attacks on TSB customers increased by 843% in May compared with April.

A recent KnowBe4 study involved sending phishing test emails to 6 million people, and the study found that recipients were most likely to click on phishing emails when they promised money or threatened the loss of money. This highlights a classic human weakness that always provides hope to cyber-criminals, and the same criminals know that the most effective templates for phishing are the ones that cause a knee-jerk reaction in the recipient i.e. the alarming or urgent nature of the subject makes the recipient react without thinking.

Increase In Malicious Intent Emails

The FireEye study also highlighted the fact that there has been an increase over the last 6 months in the emails sent to us that have malicious intent. For example, the latest study showed that one in every 101 emails had malicious intent, whereas this figure was one in every 131 in the previous 6 months.

Biggest Vulnerability

As FireEye noted after seeing the findings of their research, email is the most popular vector for cyber attacks, and it is this that makes email the biggest vulnerability for every organisation.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It is very worrying that we can only really trust less than one third of emails being sent to businesses as being ‘clean’ enough and free enough of obvious criminal intent to be allowed through to the company inbox. It is, of course, important to have effective anti-virus / anti-malware protection in place on email programs, but phishing emails are able to get past this kind of protection, along with other methods such as impersonation attacks like CEO fraud. Organisations, therefore, need to focus on making sure that staff are sufficiently trained and educated about the threats and the warning signs, and that there are clear procedures and lines of responsibility in place to be followed when emails relating to e.g. transfer of money (even to what appears to be the CEO) are concerned.

Cyber-criminals are getting bolder and more sophisticated, and companies need to ensure that there is no room for weak ‘human error’ links of the front line.

Microsoft Launches ‘AccountGuard’ Email Service For Election Candidates

Posted on by Andy Miller

A new kind of pilot secure email service called ‘AccountGuard’ has been launched by Microsoft, specifically for use by election candidates, and as one answer to the kind of interference that took place during the last US presidential election campaign.

Ready For The Midterm Elections

The new, free email service (which people must useOffice 365 to register for) is an off-shoot of Microsoft’s ‘Defending Democracy’ Program. This program was launched in April with the aim of protecting campaigns from hacking, through increased cyber resilience measures, enhanced account monitoring and incident response capabilities.

The AccountGuard pilot has been launched in time for the US Midterm elections which are the general elections held in November every four years, around the midpoint of a president’s four-year term of office.

Who Can Use AccountGuard?

Microsoft says that its AccountGuard service can be used by all current candidates for federal, state and local office in the United States and their campaigns; the campaign organisations of all sitting members of Congress, national and state party committees, any technology vendors who primarily serve campaigns and committees, and some non-profit organisations and non-governmental organizations. Microsoft AccountGuard is offered free of charge and is full service, coming with free email and phone support.

Three Core Offerings

AccountGuard has three core offerings. These are:

  1. Unified threat detection and notification across accounts. This means providing notification about any cyber threats in a unified way across both email systems run by organisations and the personal accounts of these organizations’ leaders and staff who opt in. This part of the service will only be available only for Microsoft services including Office 365, Outlook.com and Hotmail to begin with, and Microsoft says it will draw on the expertise of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC / MSTIC).
  2. Security guidance and ongoing education. Registering for Microsoft AccountGuard gives organisations best practice guidance and materials. These are in the form of off-the-shelf materials and in-depth live sessions.
  3. Early adopter opportunities. This means access to private previews of the kind of security features that are usually offered by Microsoft to large corporate and government account customers.

Similar To Google

Some commentators have highlighted similarities between the AccountGuard idea and Google’s Advanced Protection Program (APP), also launched this year, although APP is open to anyone, requires log in with hardware authentication keys, and locks out third-party app access.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

When you think about it, what Microsoft appears to be admitting is that its everyday email programs are simply not secure enough to counter many of the threats that now look likely to come from other states when elections are underway. Microsoft’s other, non-political business customers who are also at risk from common cyber attacks e.g. phishing, may feel a little left out that they are apparently not being offered the same level of security.

Also, protecting democracy sounds like quite a grand aim for a service provider offering an email service. Microsoft does, however, accept that it can’t solve the threat to US democracy on its own and that it believes this will require technology companies, government, civil society, the academic community and researchers working together. Microsoft also acknowledges that AccountGuard is limited to protecting those using enterprise and consumer services, and that attacks can actually reach campaigns through a variety of other ways. Microsoft also appears to be hinting that it may be thinking of expanding AccountGuard to industry as well as government depending on how the pilot works.

BA Security Fallout

Posted on by Andy Miller

A discovery of the file containing the code used in the recent hack of the British Airways website and app that affected 380,000 transactions has revealed that it only took 22 lines of JavaScript to cause the massive data breach.

Skimming

The hack that took place on 21st August and caused disruption into September is now believed to be down to the injection of a digital skimming file designed to steal financial data from the online payment forms of BA’s website and app. The small skimming file, which was discovered by a cyber-security firm RiskIQ, was used to grab data from BA’s online payment form and then send it to the hacker’s server when the customer hit the ‘submit’ button.

Targeted

The researcher concluded that this was a highly targeted attack where the malicious page in the app was built using the same components as the real website, thereby giving a very close match to the design and functionality of the real thing.

The RiskIQ researcher has described the 22 line digital skimming file implanted by the hackers as “simple but effective”.

Magecart Suspected

The finger of suspicion is now being pointed at a group of hacking operatives known as Magecart. The suspicion is based upon a close match with their modus operandi as highlighted in a recent attack on the Ticketmaster websites where Madgecart also used a similar digital skimmer hidden in a third-party element of the payment process.

More To Come

The attacks on Tacketmaster and BA are believed to be part of a larger campaign by the Magecart hacking group to target big brands, and it is thought, therefore, that more big names will be hitting the headlines soon for data breaches.

Vulnerable

According to some security commentators, the weakest link in payment processes is an obvious place for hackers to strike e.g. by putting older systems or third-party code into a payment chain.

The apparent ease of the attack, which led to the theft of names, email addresses and full credit card details, has led to obvious anger from those affected and criticism of BA by security commentators and professionals.

Big Fine Possible Under GDPR

There is now the real possibility that BA could face a massive £500 million fine (4% of global turnover based on 2017) under GDPR, and this breach is believed to be one of the first really big tests of the new law.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though the hackers in this case had gone to great lengths to closely tailor their code to the BA site and used a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate, suggesting a serious level of planning and targeting, it still remains a relatively simple method of attack that has exposed vulnerabilities in the payment systems of a big company. The dependable image of BA, the fact that it is such a big brand, and the scale and scope of the theft have caused shock and anger among customers, and there will undoubtedly be substantial costs to BA’s finances and reputation.

As some security commentators have pointed out, there are ways to preventing third-party code taking data from sensitive web pages, and BA should really have been wise to this. In BA’s defence, even encryption of data used in the payment system would not have been effective because the data was intercepted before it had reached the company’s servers.
One positive thing to be taken from this case is that it has alerted more companies to the possibility of this kind of attack, thereby giving them time to build-in defences against it.

Criminals ‘Invest’ More Than Businesses

Posted on by Andy Miller

Research shows that one reason why organisations face constant, serious security threats is that cyber criminals, fuelled by a new cybercrime-based economy are spending much more on cyber attacks than organisations are spending on cyber security.

Cyber Criminals Spending and Reinvesting $Trillions!

Back in 2017, Gartner predicted that organisations would collectively be spending around $96 billion on their cyber-security. Although this is a big number, it is dwarfed by the figures relating to the proceeds of crime.

For example, last year, Cyber Security Ventures predicted that cyber-crime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, and Bromium’s independent study from April this year showed that the booming cyber-crime economy has generated $1.5 trillion in illicit profits. This figure is the equivalent to the GDP of Russia, meaning that if cyber-crime was a country, it would have the 13th highest GDP in the world!

Although some of these profits have been simply acquired, laundered, and spent, much has been ‘reinvested’ by cyber criminals. This means that there is potentially a great deal more being spent by cyber-criminals on cyber-attacks than is being spent by organisations on cyber security.

Revenues Exceed Those of Companies

In fact, cyber-crime revenues have been found to often exceed those of (mainly SME-sized) legitimate companies, although they can reach the levels of large, multi-national organisations of over $1 billion.

Greater Spending Forecast

Some commentators have forecast hope in the form of much greater security spending by organisations in the not-too-distant future. For example, research company Gartner has noted that, with the average cost of a data breach at $3.86 million (Ponemon Institute figures), and with the recent string of highly publicised data breaches, privacy concerns are becoming the catalyst for increased security spending for organisations. Skills shortages and GDPR are also driving demand for security services.

Gartner predicts that privacy concerns will drive at least 10% of the market demand for security services through 2019 as security and risk management are recognised as being critical part of any digital business initiative. Gartner also predicts that at least 30% of organisations will be spending on GDPR-related consulting and implementation services through 2019.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The huge sums being made and re-invested in their activities by cyber-criminals are evidence of a big change in the environment that poses a major threat to data security for businesses. Security commentators have noted that in a world where data has become a valuable commodity, a professional cybercrime-based economy has grown and become self-sustaining system and a platform of criminality that mirrors the platform capitalism model used by big companies. The economic relationships and agents in this criminal system can generate and maintain huge revenue streams that can be used to fund more cyber-crime and other crime such as human trafficking, drugs and terrorism.

The wealth of states is also being used to fund cyber-crime as hacking gangs carry out more state-sponsored attacks (e.g. Russia, China and North Korea) thereby threatening many parts of the UK economy. Clearly, this is a challenging time for UK businesses in terms of planning and spending on security.

Apple Apps Taken Down For Spying

Posted on by Andy Miller

The Mac App Store has taken down a number of well known security apps for the Apple Mac after it was discovered that they are being used to spy on the browsing habits of their users.

Which Apps?

It has been reported that Dr Unarchiver, Dr Cleaner, Adware Medic, Adware Doctor and App Uninstall have all been removed from the Apple-curated Mac App Store on the grounds of spying on users.

Rumbled

A researcher in Germany, identified only by their @privacyis1st twitter identity is credited with alerting the Mac App Store to the fact that the Adware Doctor app attributed to a company called Yongming Zhang (the name of a well-known Chinese serial killer) and the Trend Micro apps were linked to the same suspect IP address in China.

It has also been reported that suspicions and concerns about the apps go back some years. For example, online reports about Adware Doctor from 2016 indicate that the app was using AppleScript to perform actions in violation of Apple’s App Store Guidelines. It has also been alleged that the glowing reviews of Adware Doctor and other applications by the same developer may have been faked.

How?

It has been reported that the suspect apps were able to spy by first tricking the user into giving them macOS home directory access with virus scanning and clear cache options. When this permission was granted, the apps were able to abuse access privileges by gathering browser-history data from Chrome, Firefox and Safari. This data was then sent back to suspected malicious operators.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is not the first time that there have been reports of dodgy apps lurking in legitimate stores. For example, back in January, 36 fake and malicious apps for Android that could harvest your data and track your location, masquerading as security tools were discovered in the trusted Google Play Store. All had reassuring names such as Security Defender and Security Keeper, and many performed some legitimate tasks on the surface, such as cleaning junk, saving battery, scanning, and CPU cooling, but all were found to be hiding malware, adware and tracking software.

Apple generally has a good brand reputation with regards to security so it will undoubtedly be very unhappy to have its name and the store that it curates associated in any way with any malicious apps.

This story is another reminder that, when it comes to apps, even though the obvious advice is to always check what you are downloading and the source of the download, the difference between fake apps and real apps can be subtle, and even Apple (in this case) didn’t immediately spot the hidden aspects of the apps. Also, we often don’t have the time to make checks on the apps that we download, and good reviews and the ‘halo effect’ of the good name of the store that they’re in are often enough of a recommendation for us to act.

The fact that many of us now store most of our personal lives on our smart phones makes reports such as these all the more alarming, and can undermine our confidence in (and cause costly damage to) the brands that are associated with such incidents.

To minimise the risk of falling victim to suspect apps, users should check the publisher of an app, check which permissions the app requests when you install it, delete apps from your phone that you no longer use, and contact your phone’s service provider or visit the High Street store if you think you’ve downloaded a malicious / suspect app.

The bad publicity from this story may also make Apple keen to review its systems and procedures for checking the apps that are offered in the store that it curates.

Google To Kill Dodgy Tech Support Ads

Posted on by Andy Miller

A rise in the number of adverts appearing in Google placed by scammers offering fake tech support has led Google to announce the rollout of a new advert verification programme.

Can’t Tell The Good From The Bad

Google’s Director of Global Product Policy, David Graff, made the announcement on the Google blog. Mr Graff said that, after seeing a rise in misleading ad experiences stemming from third-party technical support providers, Google had taken the decision to begin restricting ads in that category globally. Mr Graff also said that, because the fraudulent activity takes place off the Google platform, it has made it difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers, and this has necessitated the roll out in the coming months of a verification program to ensure that only legitimate providers of third-party tech support can use the Google platform to reach consumers.

The Scam Adverts

According to Google, last year it took down more than 3.2 billion ads that violated its advertising policies. Google has banned ads for payday loans and bail bonds services, and has introduced verification programmes to fight fraudulent ads for other services such as local locksmith services and addiction treatment centres. It now appears that the scammers have moved into the tech support category to find their victims.

How The Scam Works

According to FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3), it received approximately 11,000 complaints related to tech support fraud in 2017. This kind of fraud can use several methods for the initial contact with the victim e.g. telephone, search engine adverts, pop-up messages or locked screens (accompanied by a recorded, verbal message to contact a phone number for assistance), or a warning in a phishing e-mail.

The way the fake tech support scam works using search engine adverts, which is the method that Google has highlighted is that:

  • Criminals pay to have fraudulent tech support company links and ads show higher in search results. Victims click on the links / ads, and the ads provide a phone number.
  • When the victim calls the fake tech support company, a representative criminal attempts to convince the victim to provide remote access to their device. If the device is a tablet or a smart-phone, the criminal usually try to make the victim connect the device to a desktop computer.
  • When a remote connection has been made, the criminal will claim to find expired licenses, viruses, malware or other (bogus) issues and will tell the victim that there will be a charge to remove the issue.
  • The criminal will then request payment through personal/electronic check, bank/wire transfer, debit/credit card, prepaid card, or virtual currency.

The scam has other variations which can also involve re-targeting previous victims by posing as government officials / police, offering assistance in recovering losses from a previous tech support fraud incident.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For those companies legitimately offering tech support services online using advertising, as well as for the many previous and potential victims, this announcement by Google will be welcomed. It is also in Google’s interest to police its own advertising platform because it provides a significant source of revenue.

We can all take precautions to stop ourselves / our businesses from falling victim to this type of scam. These precautions include:

  • Remembering that any legitimate tech support company are unlikely to initiate unsolicited contact with you / your company.
  • Installing ad-blocking software to eliminate / reduce pop-ups and malvertising (online advertising to spread malware), and making sure that all computer anti-virus, security, and malware protection is up to date.
  • Being very cautious of any support numbers that have been obtained via open source searching i.e. via sponsored links /
  • Google ads.
  • Not giving any unverified people remote access to any devices or accounts.