Scammers are flooding Fb with teams that purport to supply video streaming of funeral providers for the lately deceased. Family and friends who observe the hyperlinks for the streaming providers are then requested to cough up their bank card info. Not too long ago, these scammers have branched out into providing faux streaming providers for almost any type of occasion marketed on Fb. Right here’s a more in-depth take a look at the dimensions of this scheme, and a few findings about who could also be accountable.
One of many many rip-off funeral group pages on Fb. Clicking to view the “dwell stream” of the funeral takes one to a newly registered web site that requests bank card info.
KrebsOnSecurity lately heard from a reader named George who mentioned a buddy had simply handed away, and he observed {that a} Fb group had been created in that buddy’s reminiscence. The web page listed the right time and date of the funeral service, which it claimed might be streamed over the Web by following a hyperlink that led to a web page requesting bank card info.
“After I posted concerning the web site, a buddy of mine indicated [the same thing] occurred to her when her buddy handed away two weeks in the past,” George mentioned.
Looking out Fb/Meta for just a few easy key phrases like “funeral” and “stream” reveals numerous funeral group pages on Fb, a few of them for providers prior to now and others erected for an upcoming funeral.
All of those teams embrace pictures of the deceased as their profile picture, and search to funnel customers to a handful of newly-registered video streaming web sites that require a bank card cost earlier than one can proceed. Much more galling, a few of these pages request donations within the title of the deceased.
It’s not clear what number of Fb customers fall for this rip-off, but it surely’s price noting that many of those faux funeral teams entice subscribers from a minimum of among the deceased’s followers, suggesting these customers have subscribed to the teams in anticipation of the service being streamed. It’s additionally unclear how many individuals find yourself lacking a buddy or beloved one’s funeral as a result of they mistakenly thought it was being streamed on-line.
Considered one of many look-alike touchdown pages for video streaming providers linked to rip-off Fb funeral teams.
George mentioned their buddy’s funeral service web page on Fb included a hyperlink to the supposed live-streamed service at livestreamnow[.]xyz, a website registered in November 2023.
In line with DomainTools.com, the group that registered this area is known as “apkdownloadweb,” relies in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and makes use of the DNS servers of a Internet hosting firm in Bangladesh referred to as webhostbd[.]internet.
A search on “apkdownloadweb” in DomainTools reveals three domains registered to this entity, together with live24sports[.]xyz and onlinestreaming[.]xyz. Each of these domains additionally used webhostbd[.]internet for DNS. Apkdownloadweb has a Facebook page, which reveals plenty of “dwell video” teasers for sports activities occasions which have already occurred, and says its area is apkdownloadweb[.]com.
Livestreamnow[.]xyz is at the moment hosted at a Bangladeshi hosting supplier named cloudswebserver[.]com, however historic DNS information present this web site additionally used DNS servers from webhostbd[.]internet.
The Web deal with of livestreamnow[.]xyz is 148.251.54.196, on the internet hosting large Hetzner in Germany. DomainTools reveals this identical Web deal with is residence to nearly 6,000 other domains (.CSV), together with tons of that reference video streaming phrases, like watchliveon24[.]com and foxsportsplus[.]com.
There are millions of domains at this IP deal with that embrace or finish within the letters “bd,” the nation code top-level area for Bangladesh. Though many domains correspond to web sites for electronics shops or blogs about IT matters, simply as many comprise a good quantity of placeholder content material (assume “lorem ipsum” textual content on the “contact” web page). In different phrases, the websites seem authentic at first look, however upon nearer inspection it’s clear they don’t seem to be at the moment utilized by energetic companies.
The passive DNS information for 148.251.54.196 present a shocking variety of outcomes which are mainly two domains mushed collectively. For instance, there may be watchliveon24[.]com.playehq4ks[.]com, which shows hyperlinks to a number of funeral service streaming teams on Fb.
One other mixed area on the identical Web deal with — livestreaming24[.]xyz.allsportslivenow[.]com — lists dozens of hyperlinks to Fb teams for funerals, but additionally for nearly all sorts of occasions which are introduced or posted about by Fb customers, together with graduations, live shows, award ceremonies, weddings, and rodeos.
Even neighborhood occasions promoted by state and native police departments on Fb are honest sport for these scammers. A Fb web page maintained by the police drive in Plympton, Mass. for a city social occasion this summer time referred to as Plympton Night Out was shortly made into two totally different Fb teams that knowledgeable guests they may stream the festivities at both espnstreamlive[.]co or skysports[.]dwell.
WHO’S BEHIND THE FAKEBOOK FUNERALS?
Recall that the registrant of livestreamnow[.]xyz — the bogus streaming web site linked within the Fb group for George’s late buddy — was a corporation referred to as “Apkdownloadweb.” That entity’s area — apkdownloadweb[.]com — is registered to a Mazidul Islam in Rajshahi, Bangladesh (this area can be utilizing Webhostbd[.]internet DNS servers).
Mazidul Islam’s LinkedIn web page says he’s the organizer of a now defunct IT weblog referred to as gadgetsbiz[.]com, which DomainTools finds was registered to a Mehedi Hasan from Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
To convey this full circle, DomainTools finds the area title for the DNS supplier on the entire above-mentioned websites — webhostbd[.]internet — was initially registered to a Md Mehedi, and to the e-mail deal with webhostbd.internet@gmail.com (“MD” is a standard abbreviation for Muhammad/Mohammod/Muhammed).
A search on that e-mail deal with at Constella finds a breached document from the info dealer Apollo.io saying its proprietor’s full title is Mohammod Mehedi Hasan. Sadly, this isn’t a very distinctive title in that area of the world.
However as luck would have it, someday final yr the administrator of apkdownloadweb[.]com managed to contaminate their Home windows PC with password-stealing malware. We all know this as a result of the uncooked logs of knowledge stolen from this administrator’s PC have been listed by the breach monitoring service Constella Intelligence [full disclosure: As of this month, Constella is an advertiser on this website].
These so-called “stealer logs” are principally generated by opportunistic infections from information-stealing trojans which are offered on cybercrime markets. A typical set of logs for a compromised PC will embrace any usernames and passwords saved in any browser on the system, in addition to a listing of latest URLs visited and information downloaded.
Malware purveyors will usually deploy infostealer malware by bundling it with “cracked” or pirated software program titles. Certainly, the stealer logs for the administrator of apkdownloadweb[.]com present this person’s PC grew to become contaminated instantly after they downloaded a booby-trapped cellular software growth toolkit.
These stolen credentials point out Apkdownloadweb[.]com is maintained by a 20-something native of Dhaka, Bangladesh named Mohammod Abdullah Khondokar.
The “browser historical past” folder from the admin of Apkdownloadweb reveals Khondokar lately left a touch upon the Fb web page of Mohammod Mehedi Hasan, and Khondokar’s Fb profile says the 2 are mates.
Neither MD Hasan nor MD Abdullah Khondokar responded to requests for remark. KrebsOnSecurity additionally sought remark from Meta.
