Unravelling the Norton Scam – Chapter 3

Not all information can be found using OSINT. Sometimes a little social engineering can be useful to verify data or provide new leads.

Chapter 1 – It all starts with a bad sock puppet

Chapter 2 – The Art of OSINT

Chapter 3 – What’s the big deal? And who’s to blame?

Previously, we warned you not to call a certain phone number linked to multiple scam sites. So, what exactly happens if you call +1-844-947-4746? Although it was obvious that the sites we were looking at and this phone number were involved in some kind of scam, I was curious to see what the exact business model was. Before making the call, I googled a bit and found out that the number was toll-free in the US. After topping one of my burner phones, I dialed the number.

It rang shortly and a gentleman with an Indian accent answered and asked which kind of assistance I required. I explained that I had problems with Norton 360. I couldn’t activate it. The gentleman wanted my name and my phone number, upon which I provided him with some bogus data. At first, he asked if I was able to install software, as he wanted to use Supremo to check my computer. Playing dumb, I just told him that I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do and that I have never personally installed anything on this computer. My son always did all the IT-stuff for me.

Next up, he mentioned two URLs that I should try to visit: helpme(dot)net and 1234computer(dot)com. It turns out that both sites were also meant to give him remote access to my computer.

This is where another important lesson in OSINT (and life) can be learned: Proper preparation prevents poor performance! I had not expected this and therefore hadn’t set up a clean Windows VM to play around with. Sadly, I had to find an excuse why I couldn’t access the URLs he had cited. I promised to call back, but never managed to get through again. From there on, the number only redirected me to voicemail. Funny enough, the mailbox mentions a typical American name as the owner. Maybe this could be useful in the future.

In any case, it was clear how the scam worked. Unsuspecting, non-tech-savvy users would call the hotline and give the scammers remote access to their computers. From there on, the possibilities to do harm are countless. Ever since then, I have always made sure to have a clean Windows VM that I can use in such cases.

Since we now had an idea what the scam was about, we decided to push forward with our investigations. Sector found a phone number associated with the site energeticsquad(dot)com. This site belonged to an IT-company named Energetic Squad LLC in Illinois, which coincidentally was also located at the address we had already seen on multiple scamming sites. The number found by Sector was an Indian mobile and I decided to get in touch with this person to find out if he or she was in any way related to the aforementioned website or any of the other scam sites. I noticed that it was registered in WhatsApp, so I decided to have a little chat. Of course, I used a burner phone for this; to be more precise, I was running WhatsApp in an Android VM on my computer.

What struck me here, is that I was indeed on the right track. I never said that the company was a LLC, yet it was immediately mentioned by the person I was texting with. By this, the owner of the Illinois company offering local tech-support was using an Indian phone number. He wasn’t keen on giving me his name, but his reactions showed that me that the name I had was also likely correct. At least he didn’t deny it.

I offered to buy his domain and we went back and forth regarding the price. I was pushing hard, something I usually wouldn’t do in a real case, and soon he asked if I could come to the US for further negotiations. I assume he was just trying to put me off track and distracting from the fact that he was actually located in India. His English also wasn’t what I would expect from a native speaker. Of course, I was able to travel to the US and at this point he decided to end the conversation.

Being blocked by a scammer, because he accuses you of being a scammer. Now there’s a pot calling the kettle black! Of course, I burned bridges here and wasn’t able to reestablish contact after this. However, we did learn that the Indian mobile phone number was in fact connected to the website and the company. Also, we had likely found an actual name. Later on, we found out that the company Energetic Squad LLC had been registered in Illinois in the meantime, and that the name of their manager was the same name that is being used on the fake tech support voicemail. Everything and everyone is linked!

There were several other suspects which we had also contacted, and almost everyone acted as suspicious as the person I wanted to buy the domain from. In any case, these conversations gave us many new leads to follow up on and had us pivot toward social media profiles. Maybe these will provide some insight on the scam network (in the next chapter).

Sector035/MW-OSINT – 07.08.2019