You’re probably aware of some of the scams being perpetrated against unsuspecting people. One of the more popular ones of late comes in the form of an email stating you have purchased some service that you actually didn’t. They further state that if you’d like a refund, simply call the provided phone number. When you call the number a friendly representative will ask to connect to your computer and walk you through filling out a form. The form asks for your bank account info so the refund can be transferred to your account. There are many variations on this but in all cases, the friendly representative is either stealing money from your bank account, stealing information from your computer, installing back-door malware on your computer, or some combination of those. There’s nothing funny about this. But here’s what is…
As an Ethical Hacker, I’ve sworn an oath not to hack into other people’s computers without their permission. Though I don’t condone the act, I do find it gratifying that there are some—I’ll call them “gray hat hackers”—who spend their time hacking into the computers of scammers while pretending to be victims. In fact, it’s rather amusing to watch.
Scammer Payback is one of my favorites. Pierogi pretends to be hopelessly computer illiterate while using his skills to hack into the scammers’ computers, delete files, gather information about them and often expose and report them to authorities.
Here’s a good one. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
