Feed aggregator

A pop-up appears on your computer, warning of a virus. You call the “Microsoft technician” in the pop-up message, and they explain that they need remote access to fix it. Most of us know this script by now. It’s a scam, operated by people intent on siphoning money from your account.

A court case last week gave us more insight into how these operations work. Two former executives of call tracking and analytics company C.A. Cloud Attribution Ltd pleaded guilty to selling phone numbers and call infrastructure to tech support scammers. Prosecutors say they even coached their illegitimate customers on how to avoid getting caught.

Adam Young, former CEO, and Harrison Gevirtz, former CSO, ran the company between early 2017 and April 2022. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), they sold telephone numbers, call recordings, and call-forwarding services to companies in India they knew were running tech support fraud operations. The two are US residents, but C.A. Cloud Attribution was registered in Cyprus.

The scams themselves followed a familiar pattern, using fake pop-ups warning of imaginary infections. Victims were persuaded to call the numbers, where agents impersonated Microsoft and Apple and charged hundreds of dollars for fictitious technical work. In some cases, scam agents would gain access to victims’ systems and obtain personal financial information through remote access.

Willing participants

The two executives didn’t just look the other way. Prosecutors say they advised their fraud clients to rotate through large pools of numbers so complaints wouldn’t get any single account terminated. They also told their own sales staff to pursue businesses they already knew were fraudulent. On occasion, they brokered introductions so fraudsters could buy and sell calls between each other.

To cap it all, the pair also ran a call center of their own in Tunisia from 2016 to April 2022, where some staff allegedly carried out fake tech support scams themselves.

According to FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Ted E. Docks:

“What the CEO and CSO of this well-known call tracking and analytics company did was downright despicable. By their own admission, they willfully profited from telemarketing and tech support scammers, here and abroad, who preyed on the elderly, exploited the vulnerable, and drained victims of their life savings and peace of mind.”

Young and Gevirtz pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony (concealing knowledge of a crime), which carries a maximum sentence of three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. It’s notable that the Feds didn’t get them on wire fraud conspiracy, which carries up to 20 years in the slammer.

C.A. Cloud Attribution isn’t the first infrastructure provider to get caught helping tech support scammers. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) went after payment processor Nexway, alleging the company had been “strongly dependent” on its “premium tech support” clients that accounted for roughly a quarter of its revenue. Visa had already placed Nexway into its Chargeback Monitoring Program in December 2017, but the fraud continued anyway. The FTC originally sought a $49.5 million penalty, later reduced to $650,000.

The next call from “Microsoft”

The pattern is consistent. The scam itself might be loud, with pop-up sirens and fake blue-screen warnings, but the supply chain underneath it often looks dull and corporate. According to court documents, Young and Gevirtz deliberately stopped their details appearing on pop-up tech support alerts so that C.A. Cloud Attribution could keep a low profile.

If a well-known call tracking and analytics company can spend years knowingly routing calls into scam operations and face a maximum sentence of three years, it raises uncomfortable questions about deterrence for the next vendor tempted to look the other way.

Sentencing for both men is scheduled for June 16, 2026.

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

Article URL: https://github.com/prostomarkeloff/find-dup-defs

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277455

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://om.co/2026/05/25/we-are-living-in-pinocchios-world/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277452

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/world/pope-leo-ai-encyclical-c5e1af6c

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277442

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.lza.lv/en/activities/news/2556-in-memoriam-juris-upatnieks-7-may-1936-17-may-2026

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277431

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Curious to know your opinion about YAML and other DSL created to make workflows/processes less software engineering (imperative) and more configuration (declarative).

Take a look at K8s for example, lots and lots of YAML configurations, which was used for human readability, but with LLMs do we still need them?

Wouldn't it be easier with LLMs to say: expose this service with 10 pods and enable only internal routing - which then updates couple lines of Python code (pulumi, aws cdk and etc,.) instead of generating 5 yaml files each with at least 40 lines of YAML and also try to reuse same attributes/labels/tags

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277424

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.theverge.com/tech/932417/google-gmail-docs-cal-sheets-workspace-icon-redesign

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277416

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://simianwords.bearblog.dev/the-state-of-ai-voice-assistants-is-bad-but-theres-a-clear-winner/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277414

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://github.com/hushhq/hush

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277412

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

The two own Dutch companies that allegedly provided bulletproof hosting services to Russia-aligned threat actors.

The post Admins of Bulletproof Hosting Service Used by Russian Hackers Arrested in Netherlands appeared first on SecurityWeek.

One command runs 25+ security checks on your Linux VPS. No persistent access, script self-deletes after running. Full source on GitHub.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277373

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/blank-—-new-tab/obbnmkphkmkeglaholjgnhedaoppdljf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277366

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://liveclip.substack.com/p/bts-wins-artist-of-the-year-bruno-mars-billboard

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277364

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/05/26/hp-customer-claims-firmware-update-shoved-printer-off-support-cliff/5244888

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277358

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://ni5arga.com/blog/posts/hacking-cbse/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277357

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://www.osnews.com/story/145071/flatpak-will-depend-on-systemd/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277355

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Fork of Hackertab (https://github.com/medyo/hackertab.dev). All sources fetch directly in your browser - nothing goes through a server.

LinkedIn and X work via your existing session cookies. Onboarding runs Claude (your claude.ai session) in the background to infer your stack from your LinkedIn profile. No credentials stored, no data leaves your machine.

LinkedIn, X, and Claude.ai technically restrict this kind of access — though it's your own data, in your own browser. Use at your own discretion.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277341

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://philpapers.org/rec/JOVTAF

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277302

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://github.com/heikowagner/nela-lang

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277300

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Article URL: https://dark.bio/whitepaper.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277289

Points: 1

# Comments: 0