July 10, 2024 at 06:39AM
A widespread fraud campaign, known as Ticket Heist, is targeting Russian-speaking users interested in purchasing tickets for the Summer Olympics in Paris. The operation offers overpriced fake tickets to sporting events and music concerts, using convincing websites to deceive victims. The scheme aims to steal money from victims by employing a legitimate payment service.
Based on the meeting notes, the key takeaways are:
1. A large-scale fraud campaign named Ticket Heist is targeting Russian-speaking users seeking tickets for the Summer Olympics in Paris, as well as other major sports and music events.
2. The campaign involves 708 domains hosting convincing websites claiming to sell valid tickets and accommodation options for the Olympic Games in Paris.
3. The fraudulent tickets are overpriced, with prices inflated compared to legitimate tickets, and transactions are carried out through the Stripe payment processing platform.
4. The company behind the operation, named VIP Events Team LLC, appears to be based in New York but its website has never been indexed by public search engines, and there are discrepancies in its location information.
5. The fraudulent domains were hosted at the same IP address, and the infrastructure behind the operation involves a network of 708 domains, with subdomains often including jswidget, widget-frame, or widget-api.
6. The fraudsters also targeted the UEFA European Championship and music concerts featuring famous bands like Twenty One Pilots, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Rammstein, as well as musicians like Bruno Mars and Ludovico Einaudi.
7. Russian-speaking individuals appear to be the main target of the operation, as indicated by the majority of Ticket Heist websites being in Russian and the presence of contact details using Russian mobile service phone numbers.
8. The operation has not been reported in public research and is ongoing, indicating that multiple fraudsters are trying to capitalize on the Olympic Games this year.
These takeaways provide a clear summary of the fraudulent Ticket Heist operation targeting users seeking tickets for major events and the key characteristics and indicators related to the fraud campaign.