Results matching “kevin” from SpywareGuide Greynets Blog
Since January, I've been following a particular kind of moneymaking scheme with interest. Originally, you paid a "small shipping fee" to have information on Government loans (that you could get for free anyway) sent to your door - then finding yourself being billed every month. From there, it evolved into coughing up a shipping fee in return for some magical "make money from Google" program, but the basic idea remained the same.
Shall we take a look how this one has progressed?
First, they presented you with the Obama Stimulus Program.
Click to Enlarge
Then they wheeled out a moneymaking man of mystery (that would be "Kevin Hoeffer") who couldn't decide if he was making a fortune from Government Grants or Google.
Click to Enlarge
To go with the fake blogs, fake blog comments were thrown into the mix that actually made it a lot easier to keep track of all the fake Kevins. Or Jeffs. Or...whatever his name is / was.
Kevin Hoeffer recently returned, complete with what must have been some pretty extensive plastic surgery and a brand new website pimping his "Two Step Formula". Check out his "new ride":
Click to Enlarge
Someone better tell him to call the police, because Steve Pickens has apparently stolen his car.
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...and on it goes.
The most recent version was highligted by Kevin Poulsen of Wired fame. A good portion of the URLs mentioned in this post now link to the new site, which is designed to look like a genuine news website:
http://news5alert.com
and there's also another one (called the "Bakersfield Gazette News") at
bakersfieldgazette.com
All these sites currently lead to something called the "Cash Secret Club" (ooh!) which uses a fake countdown timer and the panic inducing tactic of claiming they only have "42 slots open" to get you to part with your cash.
cashsecretclub.com
with another one located at
google-money-master.com
so feel free to add them all to your blocklists, unless the thought of paying $1.00 for shipping...."something"....to your home address while potentially having billing issues (to the tune of $79.95) like this person did is an appealing one.
Which it isn't. And that's the truth whether your name is Kevin, Jeff or Joey Joe Joe Jones Junior Shabadoo...
Shall we take a look how this one has progressed?
First, they presented you with the Obama Stimulus Program.
Click to Enlarge
Then they wheeled out a moneymaking man of mystery (that would be "Kevin Hoeffer") who couldn't decide if he was making a fortune from Government Grants or Google.
Click to Enlarge
To go with the fake blogs, fake blog comments were thrown into the mix that actually made it a lot easier to keep track of all the fake Kevins. Or Jeffs. Or...whatever his name is / was.
Kevin Hoeffer recently returned, complete with what must have been some pretty extensive plastic surgery and a brand new website pimping his "Two Step Formula". Check out his "new ride":
Click to Enlarge
Someone better tell him to call the police, because Steve Pickens has apparently stolen his car.
Click to Enlarge
...and on it goes.
The most recent version was highligted by Kevin Poulsen of Wired fame. A good portion of the URLs mentioned in this post now link to the new site, which is designed to look like a genuine news website:
I'm still trying to get my hands on the URLs involved (and I'll update the post as I get them), but the one cited by Kevin is
http://news5alert.com
and there's also another one (called the "Bakersfield Gazette News") at
bakersfieldgazette.com
All these sites currently lead to something called the "Cash Secret Club" (ooh!) which uses a fake countdown timer and the panic inducing tactic of claiming they only have "42 slots open" to get you to part with your cash.
As you probably guessed, the URL for that site is
cashsecretclub.com
with another one located at
google-money-master.com
so feel free to add them all to your blocklists, unless the thought of paying $1.00 for shipping...."something"....to your home address while potentially having billing issues (to the tune of $79.95) like this person did is an appealing one.
Which it isn't. And that's the truth whether your name is Kevin, Jeff or Joey Joe Joe Jones Junior Shabadoo...
It seems a lot of people are jumping on the same sort of bandwagon that spawned the "Obama Stimulus Program" website from a few weeks ago. Namely:
1) Create a website telling everyone they can get thousands of dollars in Government grants
2) Show lots of happy people waving their cheques around
3) Tell the end-user they can have this too, if only they send a few dollars to cover postage and packaging. Presumably in return they get sent a list of Government grants that you could have gotten for free by just, you know, ringing up your local office.
4) The website owner makes so much money they most certainly don't need Government assistance.
Here's another one, sent to me by a good friend of mine. "Jeff Gets Grants":
Click to Enlarge
jeffgetsgrants.com
It's the same deal as the Obama site - pay up for shipping and handling, and then roll around in pools of money beyond your wildest dreams.
That's the theory, anyway. Let's find out a little bit about Jeff:
"Right now I am a proud firefighter and family man, born and raised in Austin, Texas. But it wasn't always this way. Year after year more and more money kept coming out from my bank account than I deposited from my salary."
....is it just me, or does all of that sound extremely fake? Well, hold that thought.
Jeff? Say hello to Kevin.
1) Create a website telling everyone they can get thousands of dollars in Government grants
2) Show lots of happy people waving their cheques around
3) Tell the end-user they can have this too, if only they send a few dollars to cover postage and packaging. Presumably in return they get sent a list of Government grants that you could have gotten for free by just, you know, ringing up your local office.
4) The website owner makes so much money they most certainly don't need Government assistance.
Here's another one, sent to me by a good friend of mine. "Jeff Gets Grants":
Click to Enlarge
jeffgetsgrants.com
It's the same deal as the Obama site - pay up for shipping and handling, and then roll around in pools of money beyond your wildest dreams.
That's the theory, anyway. Let's find out a little bit about Jeff:
"Right now I am a proud firefighter and family man, born and raised in Austin, Texas. But it wasn't always this way. Year after year more and more money kept coming out from my bank account than I deposited from my salary."
....is it just me, or does all of that sound extremely fake? Well, hold that thought.
Jeff? Say hello to Kevin.
Click to Enlarge
It seems Jeff had a bang on the head, woke up as Kevin (laid off as an account rep, but married for 3 years to "Audrey") who now makes thousands of dollars "posting links on Google". The URL here is
kevingotcash.com
Talk about a split personality!
I particularly like the fake blog comments at the bottom of each website. Here's one from Kevi - wait, I mean Jeff. Or do I? Man, this is confusing.
....a "few months back"? I guess Jeff / Kevin / Mr Fake Person can travel through time too, because the site was only created on the 3rd of January 2009.
Doh.
Anyway, you might want to avoid all of these sites like the plague. None of them seem to be particularly legitimate, and I sincerely doubt you'll suddenly get "$80,000 to pay off my mortgage" like StephJ988 did. Assuming she's real.
Which she isn't.
She did come in handy, however, for finding more of these ludicrous websites. If ever you wanted to play the "how many times can one man be called so many different names" game, then here comes Christmas. As for poor old "Audrey", wife of Kevin (and Brian....and Steve....and John......and David...), I suspect she'll probably have the police after her due to the fact she's apparently married to twelve different men at the same time.
Cut and paste templates - an endless source of amusement.
wealthresource.org
briangetsmoney.com
roymadecash.com
johngetsrich.com
justingetsmoney.com
what-is-my-iq.org
coreyhasmoney.com
nickgetsgreen.com
scotts-online-money.com
journey-to-riches.com
davidscreditstory.com
johngotrich.com
kennygetsgreen.com
bradgetsgreen.com
ryansincomestory.info
danielgetspaid.com
joshmadecash.com
amysincome.com
kevinsgrantstory.com
stevesmoneystory.com
edwhitley.com/20
jamesgoesgreen.com
kegangrantsmoney.com
kylesgotcash.com
kellygetsgreen.com
mikessuccessstory.com/getgreen.html
tomsjournal.com/index2.html
jeremymadecash.com
It seems Jeff had a bang on the head, woke up as Kevin (laid off as an account rep, but married for 3 years to "Audrey") who now makes thousands of dollars "posting links on Google". The URL here is
kevingotcash.com
Talk about a split personality!
I particularly like the fake blog comments at the bottom of each website. Here's one from Kevi - wait, I mean Jeff. Or do I? Man, this is confusing.
....a "few months back"? I guess Jeff / Kevin / Mr Fake Person can travel through time too, because the site was only created on the 3rd of January 2009.
Doh.
Anyway, you might want to avoid all of these sites like the plague. None of them seem to be particularly legitimate, and I sincerely doubt you'll suddenly get "$80,000 to pay off my mortgage" like StephJ988 did. Assuming she's real.
Which she isn't.
She did come in handy, however, for finding more of these ludicrous websites. If ever you wanted to play the "how many times can one man be called so many different names" game, then here comes Christmas. As for poor old "Audrey", wife of Kevin (and Brian....and Steve....and John......and David...), I suspect she'll probably have the police after her due to the fact she's apparently married to twelve different men at the same time.
Cut and paste templates - an endless source of amusement.
wealthresource.org
briangetsmoney.com
roymadecash.com
johngetsrich.com
justingetsmoney.com
what-is-my-iq.org
coreyhasmoney.com
nickgetsgreen.com
scotts-online-money.com
journey-to-riches.com
davidscreditstory.com
johngotrich.com
kennygetsgreen.com
bradgetsgreen.com
ryansincomestory.info
danielgetspaid.com
joshmadecash.com
amysincome.com
kevinsgrantstory.com
stevesmoneystory.com
edwhitley.com/20
jamesgoesgreen.com
kegangrantsmoney.com
kylesgotcash.com
kellygetsgreen.com
mikessuccessstory.com/getgreen.html
tomsjournal.com/index2.html
jeremymadecash.com
I saw a message on Twitter here from one of my contacts, and decided to go check it out. What I found was an unhealthy dose of spam profiles all pushing the same collection of products (most of which seem to be purchase only).
The product being promoted here is something called "Twitter Friend Adder" which costs $50 to buy. Here's the profile in question:
Click to Enlarge
In addition to the profile site_test3, there's the original site_test profile and numbers 2, 4 and 5. In addition to those, there are what look like more placeholder profiles that haven't been made live yet numbered 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.
Click to Enlarge
Reminds me of the way people create sock-puppet accounts on Myspace...
The product being promoted here is something called "Twitter Friend Adder" which costs $50 to buy. Here's the profile in question:
Click to Enlarge
In addition to the profile site_test3, there's the original site_test profile and numbers 2, 4 and 5. In addition to those, there are what look like more placeholder profiles that haven't been made live yet numbered 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.
Click to Enlarge
Reminds me of the way people create sock-puppet accounts on Myspace...
There's been quite a lot of action going on around here recently, with a fair amount of coverage of some of the things written about. It's also interesting to note that there's been something of a resurgence in dubious Adware affiliate activity lately - companies such as Zango (who I've written very little about over the past few months) have suddenly come to the fore with what seems like an endless procession of really bizarre behaviour.
That seems as good a place as any to start, so get your bookmarking fingers at the ready and you may find a few articles to pass the time on your lunchbreak with.
August 2008: Adware on Pirate Movie Sites: [1],[2],[3],[4]
This is (of course) related to the large network of websites pushing pirated movie files in return for Zango installs. These sites are still being mapped out, with fresh discoveries all the time. The utterly fake claims with regards what a piece of Adware can do for you is one of the remnants of the old "Adware wars" I can't say I'm happy about seeing making a comeback.
August 2008: Precocious Phishers Target Teen World: [1]
Logging you into the target site once you've been phished is a nifty idea, and from what I've seen the person who came up with the idea was a teen himself. There's a surprise...
August 2008: ASCII Art Spam [1],[2]
Every now and again, peculiar spam tactics emerge and (truth be told) can be fun to work out. The above two links are related to a particular run of ASCII art spam that made a little comeback recently.
September 2008: Webcam hackers shock victims with gay porn [1]
I've always had an interest in Memes, but using shock memes to screenshot the victims reaction via webcam is quite the "humorous" tactic. I still love that one guy simply sat there picking his nose while watching one of the shock sites involved though.
September 2008: Fake Batman MMORPG leads to Adware install [1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
This one was particuarly fun to pull apart, as I got to combine two of my favourite things - Batman and videogames. An amazingly brash scam, and you can see more related sites here and here. Curiously, the story had a second wind breathed into it this week, with more coverage on Techdirt and WebProNews. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Batman is indeed awesome.
September 2008: Fake Twitter Profile Punts Orkut Attack: [1],[2]
There seems to be a little confusion over this, though I'm not entirely sure why - the blog entry clearly references the Malware attack using twitter to promote infection links from a few weeks ago, and this is not the same attack - this one specifically focuses on Orkut users.
Here ends your Link-O-Rama edition of Spywareguide.
That seems as good a place as any to start, so get your bookmarking fingers at the ready and you may find a few articles to pass the time on your lunchbreak with.
August 2008: Adware on Pirate Movie Sites: [1],[2],[3],[4]
This is (of course) related to the large network of websites pushing pirated movie files in return for Zango installs. These sites are still being mapped out, with fresh discoveries all the time. The utterly fake claims with regards what a piece of Adware can do for you is one of the remnants of the old "Adware wars" I can't say I'm happy about seeing making a comeback.
August 2008: Precocious Phishers Target Teen World: [1]
Logging you into the target site once you've been phished is a nifty idea, and from what I've seen the person who came up with the idea was a teen himself. There's a surprise...
August 2008: ASCII Art Spam [1],[2]
Every now and again, peculiar spam tactics emerge and (truth be told) can be fun to work out. The above two links are related to a particular run of ASCII art spam that made a little comeback recently.
September 2008: Webcam hackers shock victims with gay porn [1]
I've always had an interest in Memes, but using shock memes to screenshot the victims reaction via webcam is quite the "humorous" tactic. I still love that one guy simply sat there picking his nose while watching one of the shock sites involved though.
September 2008: Fake Batman MMORPG leads to Adware install [1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
This one was particuarly fun to pull apart, as I got to combine two of my favourite things - Batman and videogames. An amazingly brash scam, and you can see more related sites here and here. Curiously, the story had a second wind breathed into it this week, with more coverage on Techdirt and WebProNews. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Batman is indeed awesome.
September 2008: Fake Twitter Profile Punts Orkut Attack: [1],[2]
There seems to be a little confusion over this, though I'm not entirely sure why - the blog entry clearly references the Malware attack using twitter to promote infection links from a few weeks ago, and this is not the same attack - this one specifically focuses on Orkut users.
Here ends your Link-O-Rama edition of Spywareguide.
After writing about this website yesterday (and alerting those I know involved in comics, comic forums and news portals), I woke up to see this...
Of course, it's too early to tell if the site has been pulled permanently - but it looks like someone realised there's no point trying to scam a community when they're already waiting for it with a baseball bat.
Thanks to all who put the word around - your honorary vigilante badges are in the post...
Click to Enlarge
Of course, it's too early to tell if the site has been pulled permanently - but it looks like someone realised there's no point trying to scam a community when they're already waiting for it with a baseball bat.
Thanks to all who put the word around - your honorary vigilante badges are in the post...
Comic writer and commentator Kevin Church notes a particular kind of spam attack over at a well known comics blog. Hadn't actually seen this in action before...
Well not Kevin himself, but his website. Pakistani hackers took it upon themselves to have a bit of fun at his expense and defaced his homepage. Kevin (who shot to "fame" for rather dubious reasons...see here)..has been hacked before, and I'm guessing this won't be the last time. After all, it's an easy way to bump up your bragging rights...
