John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 26, 2023 12 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Been seeing these replies everywhere?

It's happening because Musk can't stop bots.

Let me break it down what's going on with this spam. 1./ Image
2/ Reply spammers fight a cat & mouse games with platforms like #Twitter.

One way they get spotted is by the platforms examining links.

If spammers hammer a platform by sending the same link in a thousands replies to the same scam site, it's not hard to spot & scale blocking. Image
3/ Remember spam emails w/misspellings, weird names, blocks of garbage text, mixtures of words & numbers etc?

These were all tactics to avoid spam filtering done by looking at each of these things for patterns.

Each new filtering strategy = new workarounds. ImageImageImage
4/ These incessant Twitter replies are doing the equivalent of old school email scammers.

They want targets to get curious & greedy like "oh cool look here's a website with an account that already has a balance...let me just log in & get rich!"

Who falls for this? Well... Image
5/ People greedily typing in the site URL & "logging in" see a big account balance!

1.5 million dollars in USDT

They are instantly rich!

But to get it out? Well looks like you'll need to talk to the scammers.

& maybe sign up for the "VIP plan" ImageImageImage
6/ Here's the thing. Platforms don't just look at the text & links of posts for evidence of spamming.

(Reports help too)

They scrutinize things like IP addresses & tech used for account creation & posting.

Enough signals of badness & you can scale up blocking.
7/ Speculation: anti-bot filtering that should happen before anyone can create an account or post... is failing.

So spam accounts are posting like crazy.

Then avoiding #Twitter's secondary defenses (e.g. text & URL filters) by mucking up their URLs to be less blatant. ImageImageImage
8./ Reply spam is a numbers game.

Hope some users see a reply. (e.g. 14 views on a 60k tweet ain't great but...)

Eventually you get one user ready to go the whole way & get conned.

Even if 99.99999999% of us don't, there's still potential for ROI. Image
9/ Now, here's the thing. You have seen this reply spam for a while because the network has been up before.

Then #Twitter did some mass suspensions.

But the spammers figured out how to circumvent #Twitter.

Great thread on the last go-round👇👇
10/ Still with me this far down the reply #spam rabbit hole?

Here's an interview with a crypto spam scammer by @briankrebs.

Thanks @oxleyio for flagging!
krebsonsecurity.com/2023/05/interv…
11/ Reply scam is like opportunistic infections.

They proliferate when an immune system isn't working.

Just like #Twitter's anti-bot tech.
12/ Just *so many signals* #Twitter could use to stomp reply spam bot accounts.

Them just constantly showing up in our replies is the daily reminder of just how bad things are. Image

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More from @jsrailton

Jun 18
🚨NEW REPORT: exposing a new hacking tactic.

🇷🇺Russian state-backed hackers used an App-Specific Password attack against prominent Russia expert @KeirGiles & others.

It's like they know what we all expect from them...and then did the opposite 1/

By us @citizenlab & @google's GTIGImage
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2/ Let's begin: @KeirGiles gets a message purporting to be from @StateDept asking for a consultation.

The attackers send the message from a @gmail, but CC'd a bunch of email addresses @ state.gov.

Strong credibility signal to have a bunch of gov ppl on the CC line right?

Well, what the attackers were counting on is that the State Dept mailserver just accepts all email addresses without emitting a bounce.

So they seem to have just created some fake State Dept staff names and addresses.Image
3/ The attackers wait for the 2nd interaction to introduce the pivotal deception: getting @KeirGiles to 'connect to a secure platform.'

In the next days they patiently walk him through what they want him to do, even sending a very official looking (but fake) State Dept. documentImage
Image
Read 10 tweets
Jun 12
🚨NEW INVESTIGATION: We just forensically unmasked #Paragon's Apple spyware.

Zero-click targets: Journalists. In 🇪🇺Europe.

Like 🇮🇹Italian reporter @ciropellegrino.

Reopen's #Italy's spyware scandal.

Follows our @citizenlab investigation of their Android spyware. 1/ Image
2/ Back in April, @Apple sent out a threat notification to a select group of users. Some got in touch with us @citizenlab to get analyzed.

They'd been targeted with a sophisticated zero-click attack (think: no click, no attachment to open, no mistake needed...).Image
3/ While my brilliant colleague @billmarczak was working on the phone of a prominent European journalist, he made a smoking gun discovery:

Requests to server matching our P1 fingerprint for #Paragon's graphite.

Paragon's 'undetectable' Apple spyware had just been found...Image
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Read 13 tweets
Jun 9
NEW: #Italy's spyware scandal just deepened.

Just days ago, #Italy claimed to not know who targeted Journalist @fcancellato with #Paragon spyware.

But now the spyware company is dropping heavy hints that this wasn't the full story👇
2/ Last week the #Italian government published a report acknowledging that they were responsible for certain #paragon spyware cases.

But left the politically trickiest case unanswered...
3/ Paragon frames itself as the anti-NSO... a "clean" spyware company.

But it didn't take long for them to get mired in an mess scandal in #Italy.

Now it looks like they are trying to find a way to fully wash their hands of the affair...

Read 7 tweets
Jun 6
NEW: Italy admits hacking activists with #Paragon spyware.

Blow to the reputation of a mercenary spyware company that marketed itself as an ethically clean anti-NSO.

But the official investigation doesn't answer a big mystery that's bad for #Italy & Paragon 1/..

By @omerbenjImage
2/ While Italy confirms the activist cases, they deny doing the politically explosive one:

Journalist & @fanpage editor Francesco Cancellato, whose reporting has tangled with the Prime Minister.

So who pointed Paragon against @fcancellato?

None of the answers are good... Image
3/ If we take the Italian government's claims to not know who targeted Italian journalist @fcancellato at face value...

Then it is a very bad look for #Paragon to have this case unexplained.

Who pointed their Graphite spyware at this European journalist?Image
Read 6 tweets
May 20
NEW: Pegasus spyware maker NSO Group just got publicly rebuffed by the US.

They came to DC to get off the US blacklist.

It did not work out. Thanks to their own actions.

You know about the human rights issues, but let me tell you why NSO is no friend to the United States. 1/ Image
2/ First, it's important to know that NSO was shady in how they set up the meeting.

For close observers, this is no surprise.

NSO constantly thinks that they can play the United States.

Part of what got them in trouble in the first place, but let's go deeper.Image
3/ First, NSO has consistently helped foreign governments target the US government.

And hack regular US citizens.

The first cases date back a decade to when the president of Panama used it to monitor the US embassy (and his mistress).

A decade later it was still happening...Image
Read 15 tweets
May 6
BREAKING: jury awards massive $167 million in punitive damages against spyware company NSO Group.

Precedent-setting win against the notorious #Pegasus spyware maker.

Congratulations to @WhatsApp on sticking this case through since 2019. Some thoughts 1/
2/ After years of every trick & delay tactic it only took a California jury one days deliberation to the heart of the matter:

NSO makes millions hacking mostly-🇺🇸American tech companies... so that dictators can hack dissidents.

Their conduct deserved to be punished.
3/ NSO Group emerges from the trial severely damaged.

The verdict ($167,256,000 punitive, $440K+ compensatory) is big enough to make your eyes water.

The case is ALSO a huge blow to NSO's secrecy, with their business splashed all over a courtroom.

This will scare customers...
Read 14 tweets

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