Don’t fall for fake NordVPN ads—how to avoid VPN scams

Malwarebytes’ researcher, Jérôme Segura, recently unveiled a malicious advert marketing campaign impersonating the favored NordVPN on Bing, the Microsoft-owned search engine. Redirecting folks to a pretend web site that appears nearly an identical to the supplier’s legit web site, cybercriminals sought to trick folks into putting in the SecTopRAT malware on their units. It is not clear what number of assaults have been efficiently launched.

So-called malvertising is the observe of executing malware assaults by way of on-line commercial—a profitable exercise that has already made its approach to AI chatbots. To achieve this, attackers can both pay for or hack right into a show advert marketing campaign. Google is essentially the most abused search engine for malicious search advertisements, with Microsoft Bing being the second-biggest goal “due to its close ties to the Windows ecosystem and Edge browser,” wrote Segura.

The newest NordVPN rip-off just isn’t an remoted case involving a digital personal community app, both. Attackers proceed to take advantage of the best VPN companies for pretend advertisements to benefit from an elevated curiosity in privacy-preserving software program among the many public. As the stakes have by no means been larger, I talked with the group at Nord concerning the hazard of malicious VPN advertisements and the way to not fall sufferer to those on-line scams.

What’s the hazard of malvertising?

“Malvertising is neither new nor somehow specific to the VPN industry. Malicious actors will use all popular and reputable brands to stage malware attacks,” Laura Tyrylytė, Head of Public Relations at Nord Security, instructed me.

However, there have been many incidents the place cybercriminals have turned to the world of VPNs to launch their assaults. NordVPN, as an example, is a recurring goal. In 2020, its VPN safety group labored on taking down the same pretend web site that was attempting to infiltrate a virus through malicious software program. 

A 12 months later, researchers at Zscaler ThreatLabZ discovered that cybercriminals used malicious VPN apps masquerading as fashionable suppliers like NordVPN, Hotspot Shield, and F-secure Freedom VPN to distribute an infostealer malware often called Raccoon stealer.

“Threat actors have shifted their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to target VPN users over the past year, taking advantage of the increase in remote work and the popularity of VPN applications,” the report reads.

Short for virtual private network, a VPN is safety software program that encrypts the info leaving your gadget whereas spoofing your IP deal with. Some suppliers, like NordVPN, embody further safety like antivirus, anti-malware, and ad-blocker. 

If you are trying to obtain such a safety software program app, it is seemingly you do not presently have safety protections put in in your machine. This makes you extra weak to assaults. Criminals know that. Hence, impersonating a VPN supplier’s web site is a pure alternative for malvertisers. 

Cybercriminals might wish to compromise your gadget to steal your knowledge, executing ransomware assaults, identification fraud and extra. Even adware makers are utilizing banner advertisements on-line to permit governments to conduct surveillance, TechSwitch reported.

While cybercriminals’ actions are in some way predictable, the preferred search engines like google and yahoo in the marketplace seemingly can not sustain with this worrying pattern. According to Tyrylytė, that is as a result of the likes of Google and Bing don’t allocate enough sources to regulate the promoting of malicious web sites and purposes.

Take the newest pretend advert impersonating NordVPN, for instance. The malicious advertiser managed to seize the site visitors from Bing searches and redirect customers to a cloned rip-off web site. However, the URL within the advert snippet exhibits clear indicators of a possible rip-off—NordVPN is misspelled and the web site was created solely a day earlier than. 

“[The search engine] is basically allowed to bid on any brand as a keyword without overlooking potentially harmful activities,” Tyrylytė instructed me, including that search engines like google and yahoo ought to stop these malicious web sites from showing as advertisements earlier than inflicting hurt to web customers.

Asked whether or not the corporate is anxious that such malvertising campaigns can in some way injury Nord fame as a safety agency, Tyrylytė mentioned they’re extra involved concerning the privateness and safety of the folks falling for these scams. “That’s why we put our efforts to educate our users and partners about malvertising attacks,” she added. 

How to not fall sufferer of malicious advertisements

Malvertising is a profitable and efficient playground for cybercriminals, a bootleg business that retains rising. Like phishing, new applied sciences have made crafting assaults simpler and faster. All this implies we should be taught to navigate this infested digital world to keep away from drowning in malware.

The excellent news is that, regardless of being more and more extra credible, you possibly can all the time spot a rip-off. For occasion, within the NordVPN pretend advert, the supplier’s web site was misspelled as nordivpn[.]xyz. However, the supplier makes use of solely https://nordvpn.com/, https://support.nordvpn.com/, or https://nordvpn.org/ as web site domains. Looking out for errors each within the domains and endings is then a straightforward technique to confirm whether or not a web site is legit.

Another component to be cautious of, based on Tyrylytė, is shortened URLs. “We observe links with suspicious elements hidden under a URL shortener, making them harder to distinguish from legitimate websites,” she mentioned. You ought to all the time verify the safety of those hyperlinks with a software like Link Checker, a handbook URL-checking software that scans web sites for various kinds of malware.

The area age can reveal a rip-off web site, too. The malicious NordVPN URL, as an example, was created on April 3, 2024, solely someday earlier than Segura unveiled the malvertising marketing campaign. They usually have solely generic e-mail accounts or no contact particulars in any respect, so make certain to verify this data as properly earlier than urgent the obtain button.

Tyrylytė additionally recommends on the lookout for a safe connection signal in your web browser bar. She mentioned: “When the site is secure, a padlock sign will appear next to the URL, or the address will be highlighted green. Next to the poorly encrypted scam websites, you will not find such a sign, and in some cases, you will see a ‘Not secure’ notice.”

As a rule of thumb, it’s best to all the time obtain purposes from trusted on-line app shops or, alternatively, straight from the product’s official web site.

Using an ad-blocker is a straightforward approach round this, too. As the title suggests such a software blocks pop-ups from displaying in internet browsers. At the identical time, additionally they stop the underlying web site from loading the advertisements within the first place.

Commenting on the NordVPN efforts towards malvertising, Tyrylytė mentioned: “We constantly monitor various platforms to catch malicious ads as quickly as possible. Once we notice that the NordVPN brand is used in a malvertising campaign, we immediately report it to Google or Microsoft to take it down. Unfortunately, without the efforts of the platforms themselves, it’s not possible to catch all malicious ads within a satisfactory time frame.”