Tag Archive for: selling

YouTube influencers selling VPNs may be a security issue

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Pro gamer recording a live stream while playing computer games

Pro gamer recording a live stream while playing computer games

Whether you’re a keen YouTube streamer or you hop on the platform from time to time, it’s very likely you have come across several hosts advertising the best VPN service of the moment for top privacy and geo-blocking online.

From a niche tool targeting businesses and cybersecurity nerds, virtual private networks (VPNs) have seen a boom in usage among everyday users in the latest years. VPN popularity is indeed tangled up with the fact that today’s digital life—for better or worse—is getting more complex and central in our lives. Even so, influencers trying to convince their subscribers to make the purchase have inevitably been a big push for this growth—while getting their cut.

Nothing out of the ordinary that other companies don’t do, you might think. Yet, helping people to protect their most sensitive data involves way more responsibilities than recommending a new pair of shoes or a smartphone.

Recent research investigating influencer VPN ads might be more harmful than good after all, by “negatively influencing viewers’ mental models of internet safety.” We asked the main providers out there what they are doing—if anything—to prevent this from happening.

The risks of influencer VPN ads on YouTube

“Our analysis suggests that VPN ads make many claims that have the potential to influence viewers’ mental models not just of VPNs, but of computer security and privacy in general,” concluded the research paper after reviewing 243 YouTube videos containing these ads.

For instance, researchers found many influencers using absolute terms, false technical claims, and misleading visuals to oversell the security and privacy guarantees of the products.

Among all the providers analyzed, VirtualShield was the one with the highest ratio of videos contaminated with overpromises and exaggerations. These ads less frequently mentioned encryption and IP address routing, too, the two very features at the core of the product itself.

Bar chart describing VPN ads in YouTube video content

Bar chart describing VPN ads in YouTube video content

Bar chart describing VPN ads in YouTube video content (Image credit: Omer Akgul, Richard Roberts, Moses Namara, Dave Levin, Michelle L….

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Everyone is selling VPNs, and that’s a problem for security

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Whatever YouTube rabbit hole you’ve spiraled down lately — gaming playthroughs, political commentary, niche eight-hour video essays — you’ve encountered an ad for virtual private network, or VPN, services. The influencers promise military grade encryption and streaming content from anywhere as long as you use code FOLLOWME10 at checkout so that they get their cut.

It’s not just anecdotal that VPN ads are everywhere on YouTube. Since the beginning of 2016, VPN companies have collectively sponsored about 247,000 YouTube videos, according to Daniel Conn, co-founder of influencer marketing consulting firm ThoughtLeaders. Almost none came up before then, signaling rapid growth as both influencer marketing and VPN companies took off.

For the YouTubers, it’s a lucrative and consistent way to fund their aspirations; for VPN providers, it’s helping to bring the obscure security product into the mainstream. But for the casual viewer, the sharp spike in VPN ads adds to the confusion and jargon around cybersecurity — and it could be misleading us on how secure we really are.

“If you do think of it like education, it might be the most pervasive form of security education out there,” said Dave Levin, assistant professor in computer science at the University of Maryland.

Researchers at the University of Maryland took a random sample of those hundreds of thousands of ads to better understand what these influencers are saying about security. While not explicitly inaccurate, most of the ads featured vague or exaggerated claims on what VPNs could do, according to Michelle Mazurek, also an associate professor in computer science at the university.

All a VPN can really do is mask your IP address and the identity of your computer on the network by creating an encrypted “tunnel” that prevents your internet service provider from accessing data about your browsing history. They can’t keep your identity secret, protect from financial exploitation, offer “military-grade encryption” or other marketing terms these companies use. Military-grade encryption refers to AES-256, but that’s become an industry standard, and won’t protect you from security threats like phishing attacks.

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International Law Enforcement Takes Down Website Selling NetWire Malware

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by D. Howard Kass • Mar 13, 2023

International law enforcement has seized an internet domain that cyberattackers were using to sell malware on the dark web capable of stealing credentials from a victim’s computer.

The site, worldwiredlabs.com, was selling the Netwire remote access trojan (RAT), which targets a system’s operating system and creates a backdoor that allows it to spy on and gain control of the computer to execute malicious commands.

Croation National Arrested

In this action, authorities in Croatia on Tuesday arrested a Croatian national who allegedly was the administrator of the website. This defendant will be prosecuted by Croatian authorities. Additionally, law enforcement in Switzerland have seized the computer server hosting the NetWire RAT infrastructure, said U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California officials.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Los Angeles has been investigating the website since 2020. It was the only known distributor of NetWire. In the sting, FBI undercover investigators created an account on the website, paid for a subscription plan, and “constructed a customized instance of the NetWire RAT using the product’s builder tool,” according to the affidavit in support of the seizure warrant, the D.A.’s office said.

NetWire Probe Yields Results

The website marketed NetWire as a legitimate business tool to maintain computer infrastructure and the software was advertised on hacking forums. NetWire is well known to cybersecurity providers and federal law enforcement for its use in cybercrimes.

Commenting on the investigation, Donald Alway, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said:

“By removing the Netwire RAT, the FBI has impacted the criminal cyber ecosystem. The global partnership that led to the arrest in Croatia also removed a popular tool used to hijack computers in order to perpetuate global fraud, data breaches and network intrusions by threat groups and cybercriminals.”

International operations to combat cybercrime has become a necessary tactic to slow the propagation of malicious software. Indeed, President Biden’s recently released…

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Russian national accused of developing, selling malware appears in U.S. court

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A Russian national accused of developing and licensing the “NLBrute” malware and selling at least 35,000 compromised logins appeared in a Florida federal court on Tuesday facing charges of conspiracy, access device fraud and computer fraud.

Dariy Pankov, also known as “dpxaker,” was arrested in the Republic of Georgia on Oct. 4, 2022 and was recently extradited to the United States, U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg said in a statement Wednesday. Pankov faces a maximum of 47 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts, Handberg said.

Pankov stands accused of developing NLBrute — also known as nl.exe or nlbrute.exe — and advertising it for sale on an underground forum as early as June 2016, according to an indictment unsealed this week. During that time he also sold more than 35,000 compromised login credentials for access to systems around the world, including in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia. At least two of those sales were to undercover U.S. law enforcement officers, according to the indictment, and involved login credentials for two separate Florida-based law firms.

Credentials sold by Pankov were “used to facilitate a wide range of illegal activity, including ransomware attacks and tax fraud,” Handberg’s statement said.

Between August 2016 and January 2019 Pankov netted nearly $360,000 from both credential sales and offering access to NLBrute, prosecutors allege. The indictment was originally filed in April 2019 and includes notice that the government intends to take $358,437 in restitution.

Pankov’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

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