Online scams and hacking attacks are increasing at a worrying rate worldwide. Cyber criminals are developing new methods to steal personal information and even money from victims. According to reports, cyber attackers are now using US government websites to fool innocent internet users. According to a report by Techcrunch, scammers have posted various advertisements for hacking services on the official websites of several government websites in the United States. It includes websites from US states, county and local governments, one federal agency, and numerous universities.
How scammers advertise hacking services on US government websites
According to reports, the advertisements uploaded by the scammers were found in PDF files uploaded to official .gov websites. These websites are owned by the state governments of California, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Washington and Wyoming; St. Louis County in Minnesota, Franklin County in Ohio, Sussex County in Delaware; the town of Johns Creek, Georgia; and the Federal Administration for Community Life.
Scammers have also uploaded similar ads to several universities’ .edu websites. These websites include universities such as UC Berkeley, Stanford,
Yale
U.C. San Diego,
University of Virginia
UC San Francisco, University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan Community College,
University of Washington
University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas Southwestern, Jackson State University, Hillsdale College, United Nations University, Lehigh University, Community Colleges of Spokane, Empire State University, Smithsonian Institution, Oregon State University, University of Buckingham in the UK and Universidad Del Norte in Colombia.
Aside from .gov and .edu sites, other sites have also been victims of scammers, including the Spanish Red Cross; defense and aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins – part of Collins Aerospace and a subsidiary of defense giant Raytheon; and an Ireland-based tourism company.
How these links work
The PDFs shared on these websites redirect users to several different websites. Some of these are advertising services that claim to be able to hack into Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat accounts. Others provided services for cheating in video games and creating fake followers on social media platforms.
“The best way to do it
Hack Instagram
2021. If you want to hack an Instagram account (either yours from which you have been locked or your friend’s), InstaHacker is the right place for you. At InstaHacker, we offer our users easy Instagram hack solutions that are safe and completely free from any malicious intent [sic throughout]’ read one of the PDFs.
How these links impacted users
According to the report, some of the websites promoted in the PDFs appeared to be part of a complex scheme to generate money through click fraud. According to reports, the cyber criminals use open-source tools to create pop-ups to verify that the visitor is human, but generate money in the background. A review of the websites’ source code suggests that the advertised hacking services are likely fake. However, the report added that at least one of the websites displayed profile pictures and names of alleged victims.
Several victims have also reported that these incidents are not necessarily indicative of a violation. However, these stem from scammers exploiting a flaw in online forms or content management system (CMS) software that allowed them to upload PDFs to their websites.
Zee Zaman
a spokesman for CISA, said the agency is “aware of the apparent compromise of certain government and university websites to host search engine optimization (SEO) spam.” We are coordinating and bidding with potentially affected entities Need help on.”
