I was attacked by a Hacker
Elon Musk needs to take Twitter's scammer epidemic seriously
I was contacted by what seemed to be a legitimate Twitter account / company representative for Lingoda. After all, they had that shiny blue checkmark going which indicates proof of verification.
They offered me 400 USD for a 20-second promo and seemed persistent in pursuing my services. Then I uploaded the “contract” I received to VirusTotal, the internet’s best online scanner for harmful viruses, spyware, etc.
Here are the results:
Once on your PC, the “contract” in question masquerades as a PDF but is actually an application. In this case it claims to be a screen saver, in a different case I will be illustrating below it instead only presented as an EXE-file.
What made it suspicious is that the icon makes it look like a PDF, but Acrobat Reader won’t open the file, and a PDF is never supposed to come in the shape of an .EXE file (executive file, meaning it starts a program entirely on its own).
When I confronted the account, look what this bunghole had to say:
(Note: There were no more replies after this. The “New message” notification on the screenshot was me asking him to explain himself)
A few weeks after being contacted by “Lingoda”, I received a similar offer from the prestigious company Corel which offers software for aspiring digital artists. They are one of Photoshop’s main competitors.
The lay-up was the same, you are contacted to have a brief discussion about pricing (usually generous amounts) and then they ask you to download a Winrar archive consisting of promo footage and a “contract” you’re supposed to sign. Exactly the same approach as the fake Lingoda representative.
This contract looks like a PDF but is actually an executive program. Normally in the world of phishing and spyware, this is reason to be careful. Pay attention to the wording when I confronted them:
When I confronted them, they only added further instruction to “run the file as administrator”, hopefully so I can infect myself with whatever tool of Satan’s they had in mind. As you can see the person I am talking to operates like a robot more than a real person.
They’re offering “advice” that is not addressing the core issue at hand, and ignoring how dangerous it can be to install spyware on one’s computer. Instead they simply proceed to try and get me to open the program. A clear red flag.
Yikes.
Around the same time I was approached by yet another “company representative”, promoting a badass video-game called Wuthering Waves:
Yeah ….
It seemed like a cool offer. The game looks amazing. But when I responded the e-mail bounced back, meaning I got an error message saying it couldn’t be delivered to the address.
Here is where I chose to do something you should ALWAYS do with offers like this:
I contacted the company through their official social media outlets, on their official website. That’s when this creepy response came back through their real Twitter:
So there you have it.
A new scammer trend that Youtubers and Influencers need to look out for?
Twitter has a huge problem with this. In addition to fake sponsorships looking to rob your credit card information through spyware, I also get spammed with accounts linking me to their (often unsuccessful) onlyfans-account.
Elon Musk doesn't seem to take this seriously. He lets people like this get "verified" and seem authentic. Very creepy, given how they are made to look legitimate in presentation and everything.
This is why you gotta follow the ABCs of internet communication:
Never download any file sent to you from strangers, no matter how official they appear.
(If you do, make sure you know how to use the program Sandbox in combination with anti-spyware tools such as deep cleaning with Spybot)
Always double-check with whatever entity is trying to contact you, through their official website and social media platforms. It doesn’t matter if the e-mail looks legitimate. Whether it’s your “bank” attempting to get you to verify something, or a business deal, or some kind of warning e-mail, you would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to things like this.
It’s only 2 minutes extra of your time and can make all the difference.
I'm struggling financially with my channel, bleeding supporters on my donation platforms, and these vultures hover in like this. It’s disgusting.
The only "companies" contacting me for sponsorships are scammers like this, trying to infect my system with Trojans. They must have learned the average youtuber doesn’t make a lot of money doing what they do, especially in the age of cancel culture and “family friendly” politically correct content algorithms.
Spread the word to other youtubers !
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Look at those cybersecurity skills! All it takes is just a little critical thinking. :)