otp agency

February 1, 2021

U.K. Arrest in ‘SMS Bandits’ Phishing Service

This post was originally published on this siteAuthorities in the United Kingdom have arrested a 20-year-old man for allegedly operating an online service for sending high-volume phishing campaigns via mobile text messages. The service, marketed in the underground under the name “SMS Bandits,” has been responsible for blasting out huge volumes of phishing lures spoofing everything from COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts to PayPal, telecommunications providers and tax revenue agencies. The U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) declined to name the suspect, but confirmed that the Metropolitan Police Service’s cyber crime unit had detained an individual from Birmingham in connection to a […]
September 29, 2021

The Rise of One-Time Password Interception Bots

This post was originally published on this siteIn February, KrebsOnSecurity wrote about a novel cybercrime service that helped attackers intercept the one-time passwords (OTPs) that many websites require as a second authentication factor in addition to passwords. That service quickly went offline, but new research reveals a number of competitors have since launched bot-based services that make it relatively easy for crooks to phish OTPs from targets. An ad for the OTP interception service/bot “SMSRanger.” Many websites now require users to supply both a password and a numeric code/OTP token sent via text message, or one generated by mobile apps […]