A photo of an technical support scam call centre. (Source: BBC/Jim Browning)

Are Technical Support Scams Getting More Advanced?

Technical support scams (TSS) are responsible for a growing amount of financial losses year after year. Nevertheless, while the victims are losing more money than ever, the number of interactions between criminals and victims is decreasing. Why? Because the scammers are getting better at what they do. In this paper, I demonstrate through examples how the TSS practices have become more advanced recently.

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Wireless (in)security in Canberra CBD

Due to the strict COVID-19 policies in Australia, the BSides Canberra hacker conference was back in mid-April 2021. My visit was a good excuse to take my pwnagotchi for a walk in Canberra, and draw some conclusions of the Wi-Fi security practices of the Australian capital city.

For those not familiar with the pwnagotchi project, it makes Wi-Fi password auditing fun again. A pwnagotchi device is essentially bettercap installed on a Pi Zero, allowing to capture Wi-Fi packets on the go. The captured Wi-Fi packets are automatically uploaded to third-party services, and then analysed to reveal weak wireless passwords (PSKs) of the nearby wireless access points.

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