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Creating a VPN allows users to connect through anonymous sources, masking the user's location. Such a system allows access to more websites on foreign resources, which may not always be accessible from certain countries and regions.
Scammers often use such a system to create their schemes, they may pretend to be:
- foreign employers;
- brokers;
- marriage agents;
- financial experts.
Using a VPN, scammers obfuscate their tracks so that it becomes impossible to trace them or the financial transactions conducted with them.
VPN Fraud
To hide their data and identities, scammers mask their IP addresses by connecting to a VPN. In principle, such technology is not illegal and is often used by users to mask IP addresses, which helps filter out harmful programs or ads, and also to escape geo-blocking.
As is known, any computer program or system can be used for illegal purposes, it all depends on the user. Scammers who want to hide their schemes and illegal activities on the internet, such as:
- blackmail;
- extorting money;
- stealing personal data.
They will definitely use VPNs to make it impossible to trace where the fraudulent actions originated.
Anonymous Networks and Crime
Feeling free and confident online, scammers use anonymity, or rather, anonymous nature servers called anonymizers. Such proxy servers are set up to receive internet requests, subsequently sending requests on their own behalf, which allows masking the IP address. Ordinary proxy servers are not set up to hide the main IP address.
Therefore, scammers, obfuscating their tracks, often use servers with anonymity, which allows them to carry out their machinations online:
- stealing funds from a bank card;
- extorting money;
- false brokerage;
- casino games;
- marriage scams;
- blackmail;
- psychological pressure.
Darknet VPN
Used only through the Tor browser, the darknet is a separate network of services and it has many sites. Most often, the darknet is used to search for criminal information, for example:
- about data breaches;
- hackers;
- narcotic substances;
- weapons and other illegal schemes and actions.
To hide their presence in the darknet, scammers will definitely use VPNs. It provides an additional level of protection. For example, using the darknet to sell illegal substances, scammers can deceive the buyer, using the same system, the buyer naturally commits illegal actions and the guarantee that he will seek help from the police falls away.
Hiding Tracks on the Internet
Every internet user leaves a digital footprint - a set of data that contains an email address, comments on social networks, search histories and queries on Google, purchased goods in an online store, and so on. Digital footprints can be passive or active.
Active footprints are left by the user intentionally, the more activity in social networks, posting photos, posts, the more user activity is considered. Such information is stored for a very long time on large platforms.
Passive footprints are information that appears on the internet without the user’s knowledge. It is collected using Cookies files, advertising trackers, and fingerprints.
Scammers in the Darknet
The most popular posts in the darknet are the acquisition of tools for DDoS attacks. Cybercriminals offer or buy these tools to encrypt files, gain unauthorized access to corporate and private networks, steal funds, and carry out other fraudulent activities.
Cryptocurrency traders are currently very popular, and scammers manage to install malicious software that automatically deducts funds from crypto wallets to the scammer's account.
Cybercriminals and Anonymity
Preparing to commit a cybercrime, a scammer will definitely maintain anonymity, hiding tracks. Anonymity helps in data theft, so most companies apply network encryption methods to protect businesses from cyberattacks. Encrypted data and those passed through VPNs are hard to trace.
Fake VPNs
A fake VPN has a malicious extension and is used in the Chrome browser, such extensions were forcibly installed in users' browsers and spread using installers that are disguised in pirated copies of popular games downloaded from torrents.
Fraud Schemes with VPN
After the automatic installation of VPN extensions on the user’s computer, no action was required from their side, everything happened automatically. To make the user believe the application is genuine, these fraudulent VPNs even offered paid subscriptions. This allows scammers to steal confidential information about users, manipulate their web requests, and disable various extensions installed on computers.