GPWA Maria accounts hacked

[MichaelCorfman]

Earlier today we discovered that GPWA Maria's computer had been hacked over the weekend and that the hackers gained access to her email and social media accounts as a result.

We also discovered the hackers were offering some some of our sponsor programs discounts if they made bitcoin payments to them. Fortunately, we determined that none of our sponsors made payments to the addresses provided and we promptly notified all of our sponsor program contacts of the situation. We have since followed up further with each sponsor program emailed during the period Maria's email account was compromised, knowing exactly what messages had been sent from her account.

All of Maria's internal business accounts, such as her GPWA email address, were rapidly secured, and our forensic investigation has confirmed all of our internal systems remain secure. We are working with Maria to ensure everything is returned to normal, but that might take some time with respect to all of her social media accounts.

I expect affiliates, which would never be sending funds to us anyway, are not susceptible to fraudulent requests for money made by hackers impersonating Maria using social media accounts. However, from a post in this forum, it is also clear that at least one request of that nature has been made using her hacked Skype account based on the following post by GPWA member ddm:

fwiw they tried to shake me down on skype for €1600 eur lol.

Please avoid rewarding the hackers for their fraud.

And, if you do received any such solicitation, please PM me with the details.

Thanks,

Michael

[Pokerface]

Wow, that's brutal! Sorry to hear this. Glad you were able to secure everything quickly.

Thanks for the warning.

[Christiaan]

Oh no Maria! Hopefully everything will be restored and safe soon.

[gil.langelaan]

Omg
Maria, sorry to hear that..
Really hope everything will be fine and restored soon!

Thanks for sharing this with us and warning us!

[Cash Bonus]

I'm sorry to hear about this despicable act toward Maria. What a bunch of lowlifes.

[TheGooner]

Michael,

IF you've done "forensic analysis" are you able to share the mechanism that caused the hack?
- Was it an email payload (attachment)? Or a website visit ? or something else?
- And was the affected computer using any anti-virus or software protection?

Hacks are always a worry - and sharing any lessons learnt would be useful.

[Former Member 14]

Thanks for the heads up on this Michael.

[MichaelCorfman]

IF you've done "forensic analysis" are you able to share the mechanism that caused the hack?
- Was it an email payload (attachment)? Or a website visit ? or something else?
- And was the affected computer using any anti-virus or software protection?

The attack vector was as follows: The hacker created a messaging account using the telegram app impersonating me. We know and can see that that the hacker gathered certain publicly available information about me to help create a convincing persona (for example, we have determined that profile pages and various posts of mine in the forum were viewed by the hacker). The hacker started having business conversations with Maria using using the forged account over telegram. A telegram account impersonating another GPWA staff member was also created, and there were three-way communications between Maria, the other staff member and I over telegram. The conversations evolved into a discussion of the risks of being hacked and whether Maria's anti-virus software was up-to-date. After some back and forth between the "three of us" Maria was told by "me" that software she was using was different than that used by the rest of the company, and that it was important that she upgrade to use the same anti-virus software as everyone else. And then she was provided with a link to download and install that software by "me." I think we all know what type of anti-virus software the hacker gave Maria to install.

I've always assumed that hacks were mostly accomplished by hackers finding people that engaged in risky behavior like opening email attachments from untrusted sources that might carry a payload. I can now see that there are a set of hackers that engage in this sort of more sophisticated deception of successfully impersonating someone the victim knows and trusts. Of course, as soon as the hacker gained access to Maria's email and social media accounts after hijacking her personal computer, the level of deception evolved considerably with the hacker impersonating Maria using her own accounts. I don't know, but I now wonder if some significant portion of the stories one hears about people sending money to "help" a relative with a fake emergency are based on the hacker first monitoring compromised email or other communications channels and then finding exactly the right way to strike knowing the history of exchanged messages and details of the relationship between the parties.

Michael

[ddm]

pretty nutso.
maria was gonna delete her PC.
i reminded her that it's evidence, and needs to be forensically examined + mirrored by the feds, no doubt..
[especially if insurance claims etc.. ]
I hope someone called the fricking cops on these twats.

[MichaelCorfman]

her PC ... it's evidence, and needs to be forensically examined + mirrored by the feds, no doubt..

I don't think there is anything the feds are going to do... Maria is not located in the United States, and, even if she were, the damages are not significant enough that they would spend the time necessary to accomplish anything considering all of the other hacks going on these days with far more severe consequences (this was an attack on a single PC that was operated remotely outside of our corporate network).

We do know the hacker's IP addresses were all in the Philippines (at least a half dozen different IP addresses were used), not that I think that is likely to be helpful since all of the activity was probably proxied through other hacked PCs. I also don't believe there are any insurance claims to be made.

Hacker's do this because there is little recourse, and right now the chance of anything happening to them is vanishingly small. So at the moment it is a cat and mouse game with little risk to the cat.

Michael

[ddm]

ok.

[GPWA Maria]

Hi Guys, I am back now!

Just a quick update.

I can see that the hacker has sent skype requests with this ID live:dpatrickmil plus my picture and they have also used this ID Live:.cid.feb20d1246e8853c with our finance lady’s picture.

Please be aware that Telegram profile Maria_GPWA has also been created by the hacker. The hacker is targeting affiliate program's teams using Telegram in a big way.

My advice is to trust no one and just make a call with anybody you are planning on sending money to or whenever you feel that something doesn't feel 100% right.

I know you may say "I am clever, this will never happen to me", but I would say that, you are clever until you are not.

Please email me directly if concerned with communication over social media, if you wish to verify me..


Keep safe!

[celena]

Ho la la Maria! I hope everything is better. I will look at Skype, in the emails I received.
Incredible!

[DaftDog]

It's called social engineering.

[ddm]

- weird how GPWA doesn't have a notice on homepage about this - also nothing on your GPWA group on Linkedin.

- also weird how you don't mention that others in your org have been compromised and their identities are being used to scam people.
(I heard two others have been compromised... )

it's almost like you don't care about protecting your business connections from getting scammed.

[GPWA Maria]

Morning ddm,

I am doing the rounds today, adding some info on social media about the hack.

Take care.

[GPWA Maria]

Hi All,

One of our clients got a call from me apparently, but they forgot to change the picture.

They added her to a group, then gave her a call.



If anybody knows this manager, please tell him that his picture is being used or perhaps he is involved ( not sure wat to think)



Have a good weekend!

[Anthony]

- weird how GPWA doesn't have a notice on homepage about this - also nothing on your GPWA group on Linkedin.

- also weird how you don't mention that others in your org have been compromised and their identities are being used to scam people.
(I heard two others have been compromised... )

it's almost like you don't care about protecting your business connections from getting scammed.

All our our business connections were individually contacted, that was the first thing we did. I am not aware of any other GPWA accounts being compromised. There is an attempt to make fake connections and we have posted those counterfeit accounts in this thread and will continue to make updates as we get them. If you have any additional information please send me a PM so we can review and add to this thread.

[FreeSpins]

@GPWA Maria


Since all Skype accounts are Microsoft accounts, you can check the Recent activity page for login activity. Possibly you can check location and/or IP? This info might be very interesting.

hxxps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/check-the-recent-sign-in-activity-for-your-microsoft-account-5b3cfb8e-70b3-2bd6-9a56-a50177863357

Btw, as far as I know, he is from 7Bit (Ukraine).

[GPWA Maria]

@GPWA Maria


Since all Skype accounts are Microsoft accounts, you can check the Recent activity page for login activity. Possibly you can check location and/or IP? This info might be very interesting.
hssps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/check-the-recent-sign-in-activity-for-your-microsoft-account-5b3cfb8e-70b3-2bd6-9a56-a50177863357

Btw, as far as I know, he is from 7Bit (Ukraine) !!

Thank you very much. I will try to reach out to him, so I can make him aware of this.