Latest news with #GeekSquad
The Hindu
19-07-2025
- The Hindu
Nine arrested for operating fake call centre targeting Indians and Americans
Nine individuals were arrested by the Cyberabad Police for operating a fake call centre from a rented villa in Bachupally, targeting unsuspecting victims in both India and the United States under the guise of customer support representatives from reputed financial platforms including PayPal, Geek Squad, and other credit card companies. The operation was unearthed by the Medchal Special Operation Team (SOT) and cybercrime police following intelligence inputs. The arrested accused, all natives of Kolkata, West Bengal, were identified as Danish Alam, Md. Saheb Ali alias Sonu, Md. Fahad Pervez, Md. Aman Alam, Md. Ishtiaque Ahmed, Mohammed Mohsin, Farid Hussain, Md. Shadhab Alam, and Md. Sonu. They had relocated to Cyberabad with the promise of high salaries, commissions, and free accommodation. A few more suspects involved in the operation remain absconding, and efforts are underway to trace them. Investigations revealed that the gang was operating a full-fledged illegal call centre, receiving inbound VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls from victims using apps like Zoiper, X-Lite, and Microsoft Teams, which were triggered via phishing emails. These emails impersonated major platforms such as PayPal, Geek Squad, and credit card services, falsely warning recipients of unauthorised transactions. When the victims responded, the accused, trained to speak fluently in English using scripted dialogues, convinced them to install remote access tools such as AnyDesk. Once they accessed the victims' systems, they harvested sensitive data including bank credentials, transaction histories, and passwords. Victims, many of whom were senior citizens and women, were threatened with bogus criminal charges like drug trafficking or the leaking of personal photographs if they refused to cooperate. In some cases, the fraudsters impersonated police officers or judicial authorities to create panic and extract money. The gang also used fake banking apps, spoofed emails, and social engineering tactics for frauds. The police recovered 22 mobile phones, 10 laptops, multiple headsets, and a full VOIP call setup from the location. It was further revealed that the gang had recently shifted from another villa in SVS Aparna, Bachupally, after raising suspicion among residents. A case has been registered under the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act, 2008. Police are in the process of identifying additional victims, recovering defrauded funds, and dismantling the digital infrastructure used by the group. The cybercrime police advised the public not to respond to suspicious emails or calls claiming to be from customer service teams. Verification should always be made through official sources, and any suspected cyber fraud should be reported immediately by dialling 1930 or contacting the nearest cybercrime police station.
Forbes
02-07-2025
- Forbes
These PDFs Put Your Microsoft, PayPal And Geek Squad Accounts At Risk
Beware these dangerous PDFs. Beware of the TOAD, that's the advice from Cisco Talos, a well-respected threat intelligence research team in the world of cybersecurity and business alike. The TOAD in question is a Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery threat. I know all about these, having been targeted very recently by just such an attack. You might want to simply dump a TOAD attack into the phishing bucket along with everything else. Still, it's worth separating out to understand the methodology employed, as it could just save your Microsoft, PayPal or Geek Squad accounts. The Cisco Talos report, based on an analysis of emails between May 5 and June 5, found those brands were among the most impersonated, and revealed that attackers were delivering malicious PDF attachments to victims in TOAD emails. Here's what you need to know and do. Malicious PDF Document TOAD Attacks — Do Not Open That File 'A significant portion of email threats with PDF payloads persuade victims to call adversary-controlled phone numbers,' Omid Mirzaei, security research lead in the email threat research team at Cisco Talos, said in the July 2 report. This is because PDFs, or portable document format, if you want to be more formal, files can be created from other applications and then rendered by other reader applications. This has meant it has become a prime method of distributing documents, and a weapon in the arsenal of those who would attack you. 'In recent months,' Mirzaei said, 'it has also been exploited for illegitimate purposes, such as brand impersonation.' According to research carried out by Mirzaei and the Cisco Talos team, a significant portion of email threats with a PDF payload are of the TOAD variety. 'Victims are instructed to call a specific number in the PDF to resolve an issue or confirm a transaction,' Mirzaei warned. 'TOADs are nothing new, but their resurgence recently has been notable,' Lucy Finlay, director of secure behaviour and analytics at Redflags from ThinkCyber, said. 'This evolution is accelerated by the use of AI to identify legitimate login URLs of well-known brands that are vulnerable to takeover and imitation,' Finlay continued, concluding that it's 'extremely hard for the victim to use traditionally taught security awareness techniques to detect the scam.' But the message is clear, given that attack flows have been spotted very recently, you should avoid opening or responding to, by clicking links or taking advice from unexpected telephone calls, any PDF documents claiming to be from Microsoft, PayPal or Geek Squad in particular, or any well-known brand more generally. "This is why security training needs to be integrated into daily workflows,' Finlay said, 'and nudging at the point of risk is an effective way to do this.' If a user receives an email from an address that looks extremely plausible, what with it purporting to be from a known brand, and contains a link or attachment, 'a nudge on these elements to urge caution may be enough to stop the victim from going on to respond to the attempt,' Finlay concluded. Here's where you can get more advice on how to protect yourself from such attacks, provided by Microsoft, PayPal and Geek Squad, including scams beyond the PDF file attacks covered in the Cisco Talos report.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Geek Squad, rise up! The Bruins re-sign Morgan Geekie to 6 year contract
The Geek Squad is back! The Boston Bruins announced late Sunday night that they have to come to an agreement with star forward Morgan Geekie on a 6 year contract through the 2030-31 season. Geekie, 26, had a career year with the B's last year, having a career high in points. In 77 games last year, he recorded 33 goals and 24 assists for 57 points, his first time reaching the 50-point mark in his career. Advertisement Geekie ranked second among Boston skaters last season in goals, points, even-strength goals (29), and even-strength points (48). Initially drafted back in 2017, Geekie has skated in 333 games with Boston, Seattle, and Carolina, totaling 72 goals and 87 assists for 159 points. He is set to earn $5.5 million per year. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
New York Post
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘M3GAN 2.0' review: Not scary doll dud tries too hard to be campy
movie review M3GAN 2.0 Running time: 119 minutes. Rated PG-13 (strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language, sexual material, and brief drug references). In theaters June 27. Toys 'R' Ugh. M3GAN, the AI doll with looks to kill, was always going to come back for more carnage. Advertisement Not because her simple story warranted it. The fun first film was a huge box office hit in 2022. Of course they'd wring it dry. I did not, however, expect to get completely fed up with the sassy piece of plastic by just the second movie. The second minute! She's already leapfrogged to 'Leprechaun 4: In Space,' except with neither luck nor charm. With 'M3GAN 2.0,' the filmmakers have employed a bold strategy: Take a $180-million formula, shred it and forget it. Advertisement The stupid sequel, again directed by Gerard Johnstone, is not, by any stretch, a horror movie. Instead, the fembot has returned in an annoying, forgettable and hard-to-follow action-comedy, like a thinky 'Austin Powers' or 'Spy,' that isn't remotely scary. 'Seed of Chucky' is 'The Exorcist' next to 'M3GAN 2.0.' What the flick desperately desires is to be campy. Gay bar fodder. 'Rocky Horror,' it's not. But boy is it rocky; two hours of obnoxiousness with scattered giggles at the doll's dry putdowns. Advertisement 3 'M3GAN 2.0' is not a horror movie, unlike the 2022 original. AP Allison Williams is here again as Marnie — sorry, I mean Gemma — the high-strung inventor who has about-faced on artificial intelligence after her traumatic experience with M3GAN. Now she rails against the dangers of AI, and builds tech to enhance humans rather than replace them. She has a boring anti-AI boyfriend named Christian (Aristotle Athari), whose trajectory is 100% clear from the second he opens his mouth. But Gemma, Steven Seagal-obsessed niece Cady (Violet McGraw) and the Geek Squad are forced to team up with former foe M3GAN to defeat an even worse AI creature called AMELIA (Elizabeth Olsen impersonator Ivanna Sakhno). Advertisement They wind up in some fake-looking castle. M3GAN reveals she is a martial arts expert. There's a subplot about brain implants and a perfunctory self-destruct countdown clock. 3 Cady (Violet McGraw) and Gemma (Allison Williams) are forced to team up with former foe M3GAN. AP This is a movie you've seen a million times before, wrapped in a three-year-old meme, without a famous comedic actor, and saddled with a mumbo-jumbo script. In lieu of scares — not even an easy jump scare — M3GAN begs for laughs like an out-of-work Borscht Belt comic. You wait for her to shout, 'Take my wife, please!' M3GAN serenades Gemma with Kate Bush's 'This Woman's Work.' In an attempt to force lightning to strike the same place twice, she does another dumb dance. M3GAN briefly inhabits a Teletubby-esque toy. Advertisement And on and on. 3 The film gets a few scattered laughs, thanks to M3GAN's sassy putdowns. I laughed here and there — perhaps out of amusement, perhaps out of the need to clear my throat. But a series of stitched-together social media moments does not a movie make. Forget giving horror the old heave-ho. 'M3GAN 2.0' is also beige as far as action comedies are concerned. The film is too tied up in its mind-numbing technobabble dialogue to effectively blend fights and funny. Advertisement Like its nuts-and-bolts main character, this is a movie that's very confused about its own identity. And because M3GAN's the marquee star, everybody else throws in the towel. Nobody has a personality. Doll and dull. 'With every passing moment, I can feel my mind fragmenting,' M3GAN says. In that scene, she's speaking for us all.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Geek Squad scam is back. Here's what you need to know.
Have you received an urgent email from tech support company Geek Squad, charging you an exorbitant amount of money for a subscription renewal? It's a scam. The email is not really from Geek Squad, which is a legitimate business owned by the electronics retail chain Best Buy. And while scammers love to make it sound like you're minutes away from a massive credit card charge, they can't really charge you. The large amount stated in the email is just there to scare you…that is, unless you respond and give the cybercriminals the information they want. So, up top, let's be clear: Don't respond to these Geek Squad scam emails. Ignore them. Don't engage with the scammer. Reddit Fake subscription or payment scams have been quite popular in recent months. One growing scam in this vein is the E-Z Pass toll road text scam, which tries to trick targets into thinking they owe a payment for a toll road. Victims either pay a phony bill, or they hand over valuable personal information while trying to "correct" the penalty. The Geek Squad scam is quite similar. The scammer sends a fake bill via email to an unsuspecting target. The bill is ostensibly for a subscription to Geek Squad's technical support services. Sometimes, the bill will be for general support or for a specific yet vague product like a "network shield" or "computer protection." This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. However, there is one common strategy that these Geek Squad scammers all use: The price for the service is usually an exorbitant amount. It's not uncommon for these emails to inform users that they will be charged in the range of $300 to $500 for a renewal of this nonexistent subscription service. The pricing on the fake bill is quite purposeful. A target will see they are about to be charged a large sum of money and immediately reach out to the phone number provided in hopes of stopping the charge. This is both a common technique among scammers and a dead giveaway: Beware all emails and texts that try to create a sense of urgency. Legitimate businesses won't use these kinds of pressure tactics. Reddit As with the toll scams, there's another layer here: Some victims will reach out to the scammer to stop the erroneous charge. If they are a Geek Squad customer, they'll contact the number with the belief that they are talking to real Geek Squad representative. If they're not, the scammers will try to trick them into revealing credit card numbers, social security numbers, or some other valuable information. The Geek Squad scam has been going around for a few years now, which means it must be rather successful for scam artists because they keep utilizing this strategy. Over the past few months, there's been an uptick in local news reports on the scam, particularly in New York and Wisconsin, so be on your gard. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. While scammers have likely been raking in the cash with their Geek Squad scam, thankfully, it's also very easy to avoid getting scammed. The scammer relies on their target seeing the fake bill and contacting them via a link or phone number included in the email. Once the victim makes contact, the scammer engages in basic social engineering strategies to trick the target into giving them private information. Victims have also reported that the scammer convinced them to install software that allowed them to remotely control the target's computer. Simply do not engage with an email allegedly from Geek Squad. Do not reply to the email. Do not click a link in the email. Do not call the phone number listed in the email. If you are a Geek Squad customer and must reach the company, please go to Geek Squad's official website at Best Buy, which provides a real number for legitimate contact. In conclusion: If you're wondering if that Geek Squad email is real, assume that it isn't.
