Classiscam Scam-as-a-Service Raked $64.5 Million During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Sep 01, 2023
Cyber Crime / Online Scam
The Classiscam scam-as-a-service program has reaped the criminal actors $64.5 million in illicit earnings since its emergence in 2019. "Classiscam campaigns initially started out on classified sites, on which scammers placed fake advertisements and used social engineering techniques to convince users to pay for goods by transferring money to bank cards," Group-IB said in a new report. "Since then, Classiscam campaigns have become highly automated, and can be run on a host of other services, such as online marketplaces and carpooling sites." A majority of victims are based in Europe (62.2%), followed by the Middle East and Africa (18.2%), and the Asia-Pacific (13%). Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, and Romania accounted for the highest number of fraudulent transactions registered in Classiscam chats. First discovered in 2019, Classiscam is an umbrella term for an operation that encompasses 1,366 distinct groups on Telegram. The activities first targeted R...