A New Rogers Text Message #Scam Is Making The Rounds
One of the things that I teach people to do when I give my seminars on how not to get scammed is to closely look at any email that you get or any website address that you’re asked to visit. We’re going to focus on the latter today by doing an exercise where I am going to show you two web addresses, and you need to determine which one is fake and why:
The correct answer is the second one. That’s because the technical term for a web address is uniform resource locator or URL for short. And understanding how URL’s work can help you to determine what is real and what is fake.
Here’s how a URL constructed:
A URL starts with a protocol followed by the name of the resource that has to be accessed. In this case https which is a web page with SSL encryption during transport from the server to your web browser.
That is then followed by the domain or host name. For example, itnerd.blog is my domain or host name.
If you look closely at the two examples above, they look the same. But they are not. the first one ends in “.rogers.com” after the “mobile-2fa” part of the web address. Which means that this domain name is the one for Canadian telco Rogers. And it’s going to a specific host that Rogers controls named “mobile-2fa”. That’s why there’s a period between the first part of the web address (“mobile-2fa”) and “rogers.com”
For the record, Rogers doesn’t have a host named mobile-2fa. But I am going to use it for reasons that you’ll see in a moment.
The second one has a domain name of “mobile-2fa-rogers.com” which means that that one is going someplace else other than Rogers because the entire text above is the name of a host that has been set up by a threat actor called “mobile-2fa-rogers”. And what that threat actor is hoping for is that by setting up a web address that looks very close to something that Rogers might use, you might click on it because you’re not paying attention to the details. And that in turn will lead you into all sorts of danger.
So why am I pointing this out? I got this sent to me the other day from someone who had this message pop up on his phone via text message:
The person asked me if this was a scam. And based on what I just explained above, it was. Fortunately they didn’t click on anything. And neither should you. But I did as I wanted to see what the scam was.
This is another one of these scams that uses a CAPTCHA to convince you that you’re going to the real Rogers site. But it’s clearly not the real Rogers site as explained earlier.
Once you get past that, you get to a site that has the feel of something that Rogers might create, and you also get this prompt saying that your account requires two step verification. Two step verification is something that adds security to your online accounts because there’s two factors in play. A password and a one time code that is sent to your phone. But this isn’t how Rogers does this. If you want details on how Rogers does this, click here.
You’ll notice that you as a person is not identified in any way. That should be a major red flag as any communication from Rogers will identify you with an account number or your name. Let’s continue shall we?
Now the threat actors want your name and address details. That’s great for swiping your identity.
Using some fake information to get past that, I now hit this page. I am not sure what handing over your credit card info has to do with two factor verification, but swiping your credit card details is also on the list of things to do for these threat actors.
What this example highlights is that you need to closely look at anything and everything that hits your phone, inbox, etc. Because anything and everything could be a scam. and if you’re not paying attention, you could be a victim.
This entry was posted on September 21, 2024 at 8:12 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A New Rogers Text Message #Scam Is Making The Rounds
One of the things that I teach people to do when I give my seminars on how not to get scammed is to closely look at any email that you get or any website address that you’re asked to visit. We’re going to focus on the latter today by doing an exercise where I am going to show you two web addresses, and you need to determine which one is fake and why:
The correct answer is the second one. That’s because the technical term for a web address is uniform resource locator or URL for short. And understanding how URL’s work can help you to determine what is real and what is fake.
Here’s how a URL constructed:
If you look closely at the two examples above, they look the same. But they are not. the first one ends in “.rogers.com” after the “mobile-2fa” part of the web address. Which means that this domain name is the one for Canadian telco Rogers. And it’s going to a specific host that Rogers controls named “mobile-2fa”. That’s why there’s a period between the first part of the web address (“mobile-2fa”) and “rogers.com”
For the record, Rogers doesn’t have a host named mobile-2fa. But I am going to use it for reasons that you’ll see in a moment.
The second one has a domain name of “mobile-2fa-rogers.com” which means that that one is going someplace else other than Rogers because the entire text above is the name of a host that has been set up by a threat actor called “mobile-2fa-rogers”. And what that threat actor is hoping for is that by setting up a web address that looks very close to something that Rogers might use, you might click on it because you’re not paying attention to the details. And that in turn will lead you into all sorts of danger.
So why am I pointing this out? I got this sent to me the other day from someone who had this message pop up on his phone via text message:
The person asked me if this was a scam. And based on what I just explained above, it was. Fortunately they didn’t click on anything. And neither should you. But I did as I wanted to see what the scam was.
This is another one of these scams that uses a CAPTCHA to convince you that you’re going to the real Rogers site. But it’s clearly not the real Rogers site as explained earlier.
Once you get past that, you get to a site that has the feel of something that Rogers might create, and you also get this prompt saying that your account requires two step verification. Two step verification is something that adds security to your online accounts because there’s two factors in play. A password and a one time code that is sent to your phone. But this isn’t how Rogers does this. If you want details on how Rogers does this, click here.
You’ll notice that you as a person is not identified in any way. That should be a major red flag as any communication from Rogers will identify you with an account number or your name. Let’s continue shall we?
Now the threat actors want your name and address details. That’s great for swiping your identity.
Using some fake information to get past that, I now hit this page. I am not sure what handing over your credit card info has to do with two factor verification, but swiping your credit card details is also on the list of things to do for these threat actors.
What this example highlights is that you need to closely look at anything and everything that hits your phone, inbox, etc. Because anything and everything could be a scam. and if you’re not paying attention, you could be a victim.
Be careful out there.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on September 21, 2024 at 8:12 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.