malware

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Spam Report 4: Reporting Tools

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Since my counter spammerism journey, which I started at the end of March, I have managed to find many look-up tools to uncover mail servers, name servers, domain registrars, IP addresses and much more. This has allowed me to email directly to the owners of the mail or domain servers and report the abuse.

This has had very mixed results, I have to say, some will engage and get back to you and others you just don't hear anything from. It hasn't deterred me though, I knew I would learn more about spam and how it is constructed, the types of offenders and how the internet is basically flawed. Anyone who is persuaded to invest into Bitcoin derivatives I wish them luck. I can't imagine anything worse then having my money tied up in the flawed internet. Blockchain or not, how can you possible believe that when the Internet is basically flawed you would secure your hard-earned cash inside of it.

Anyway back to reporting tools. Sending direct emails to abuse@ email addresses is not really delivering the kind of results I was hoping for and then on top of that, there's one specific type of email that is, for me at least, impossible to identify its origin, mail or domain. This type of email are usually the ones that suggest that there's a bucket load of money waiting to be claimed by you, you know the ones, I should be a triple billionaire by now and of course I am not!

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Spam Report 2: Case Study profiling BairesDev

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As part of my journey uncovering email spammers, I have started publishing some of my results on LinkedIn and tagging individuals in organisations, especially the senior leaders. This strategy is definitely starting to have some impact. In the past two incidents I have received responses from the organisations involved, either by the person who has been tagged or someone who works in the organisation.

Dialogue is good, it means they are taking the exposure seriously. I’m not sure everyone knows that LinkedIn has a super powerful search engine and therefore the possibility of negative press and exposure is a very real possibility. At least I am discovering a positive method for using LinkedIn, instead of just posting adverts about what I am doing and promoting my business, which is basically how most use LinkedIn, that and of course the personal Facebook-like posts that are appearing all over these days.

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Spam Report 1: A journey into the dark web!

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They have finally have gotten to me, after years of being a prolific emailer and trying to circumnavigate the daily spammers, I have decided to take action. You could call it ‘war on spammers’ or ‘counterspammerism’, I’m going after them in a small way but even in a few short weeks I have been able to grow my knowledge about the ways that I can start making some impact.

This is the first of what will be several reports on my progress in an effort to share some insights, which others may wish to investigate themselves.

Just to set the scene. My computer is an Apple Mac, but because it’s 8 years old I’m on Catalina. I use Apple Mail on my Mac and my iOS devices, but the bulk of the heavy lifting of course will have to be done on the Mac as on iOS as far as I can see you can’t even interrogate the email header. Seeing as the email header is where the majority of the research takes place then all the work will have to be done on the Mac.

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HELP! Older Generation targeted by Computer Virus Scammers based in India

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We all receive unsolicited calls from companies trying to sell us stuff. And although we can protect ourselves with ’telephone preference service’ in the UK, companies that call us from overseas are not bound by the same regulations as UK companies. 

When I received a call from an overseas company pretending that they were aware of a computer virus, allegedly on my PC, I decided to record the call and explore exactly what it was that was wrong with my computer.

You can listen to several calls below. Just press play.


It was particularly interesting to me because they told me that they were Microsoft Certified specialists and as I'm a Mac user I was interested to learn how they knew that I had a virus on my computer.

After I recorded the call I uploaded the call on Mixcloud and shared it on Social Media. When someone on Facebook asked me for the Mixcloud link some months later as she too had been targeted by them, I discovered that an ex-employee of the company had shared his experience of working for the company and shared the company’s contact details openly including two of their directors' names and phone numbers.

To read his post just follow the link below to the Mixcloud recording.

http://styin.me/scam-computer-virus-call

The person who contacted me on Facebook asked me how we could make use of Social Media to get this company and its directors brought to justice? She has assisted me with this blog and will be giving it exposure across her network.

So this Blogpost is our attempt to get as much publicity around this scam as possible. Would you like to help us? We need this trending on Twitter for the proper authorities, the press and TV to take notice.

Here are a few options for you to share this blogpost via Social Media.

  1. Tweet this article using the following text: 'investigate urgent #pcvirus #scam http://styin.me/expose-pcvirus-scam @BBCwatchdog @actionfraudUK @ofcom @ICOnews @ScamWarners #askpcxperts' CLICK TO TWEET

  2. Ask others to retweet and tweet their own version too.
  3. Post on your Facebook page the shortened blogpost link: http://styin.me/expose-pcvirus-scam and ask your friends to share and re-post as well.

Let's use the power of Social Networking to get this company investigated by the proper authorities and stop them from causing problems for an older generation who are far too nice and trusting based in the UK, USA and Canada.

If you're outside the UK, please ensure you report them to the proper authorities in your country.

We did further research on social media to see if the company had any profiles and found the following accounts. I have no idea if they are real. I suggest that we report the profiles to the Social Networks.

When you report them use the following text. 

'I would like to bring to your attention that this company's profile represents a company in India that carries out bogus calls to the UK, USA and Canada telling computer users that they have a computer virus. We are reporting them to the proper authorities but I suggest you remove their profile from your network'.

1.  Twitter: https://twitter.com/AskPCExperts

2.  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ask-PC-Experts/536416523112033

3.  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/askpcexperts-com

I found some further evidence that ASK PC Xperts and United e-Services are one and the same company by further web research. United e-Services was mentioned in the ex-employee's post. The address details certainly appear to match. Below are some web images from a directory search and a job advert.

Thank you for your support!

Additional information:

Domain details: http://styin.me/whoisdomainlookup