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Security researchers have spotted threat actors developing new spoofing tools designed to bypass anti-fraud protections.
Once bypassed, the scammers can impersonate legitimate customers with stolen cookies.
“While desktop-based anti-detect browsers have been used by threat actors since at least 2014 to get around account bans and otherwise manipulate systems,” researchers at Resecurity said in a blog post. “The emergence of adversarial mobile OS-based tools represents a new frontier in cyber criminal innovation.”
What makes Resecurity’s findings so interesting is that they spoke directly to the threat actors purchasing and using the new tools. For instance, while in conversation with a hacker on the Russian criminal forum XSS, the researchers discovered a mobile anti-detect tool being sold for US$700. When they reached out to someone who had just purchased the malware, the hacker explained that the tools provided a “Swiss Army knife-like” suite of tools and capabilities tailored for practising online identity fraud.
Other hackers were happy to say that dedicated anti-detect tools have “unique advantages” that let them operate below the radar.
“For such tasks, it is better to use the anti-detect browser because applications can easily calculate Android emulators,” said a hacker going by the handle Surfinite. “Anti-detect browsers were developed just for such purposes, and Android emulators are designed for slightly different tasks.”
These tools also feature impressive customer support alongside regular updates. According to Resecurity, criminal actors are constantly analysing how anti-fraud solutions work and updating anti-detect settings for optimal performance.
Surprisingly, some of these tools are actually legitimate applications, such as GoLogin, which is ostensibly an account management tool for digital marketing and web scraping. It’s also a popular tool for its ability to bypass anti-fraud technology.
“Inevitably, cyber criminals exploit the functionality of tools like GoLogin to spoof fingerprints on desktop and mobile devices for malicious purposes,” Resecurity’s researchers said.
“As mobile-based anti-detect tools become more widely adopted by the cyber criminal community, the number of banks, fintech, and online marketplaces bound to encounter increased fraud attacks from sophisticated threat actors operationalising novel exploits of anti-fraud technologies increases.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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