How Fake Tech Support Networks Are Exploiting Global Infrastructure

A recent international law enforcement operation uncovered a massive cybercrime syndicate operating out of Noida, India, exposing the evolution of scam tactics. These fraudsters ran call centres by impersonating trusted tech companies, primarily targeting victims in the UK and Australia with fake support calls.

Once victims were convinced to grant access to their devices, scammers would extract sensitive data, drain bank accounts, and install spyware. This highlights how voice phishing (or vishing) is one of the most insidious threats in today’s scam landscape.

What Makes Tech Support Scams So Effective?

Tech support scams are particularly effective due to the use of social engineering and cross-channel deception. These scams exploit human psychology and trust, making it easy for fraudsters to manipulate victims into compromising their personal information.

1. Social Engineering: Manipulating Trust

Scammers use social engineering to manipulate victims into trusting them. By impersonating trusted tech support companies, they convince victims that their devices are at risk of malware or security breaches. This manipulation creates a sense of urgency, prompting victims to act quickly without questioning the scammer’s legitimacy.

2. Cross-Channel Deception: Multi-Platform Manipulation

Scammers use multiple channels (phone, email, SMS, and fake websites) to create a layered illusion of legitimacy. After initiating a phone call, they guide victims to fake websites where they are instructed to download software, allowing scammers to remotely access and control their devices.

3. Phone Number Spoofing: Masking Fraudulent Calls

By using phone number spoofing, scammers make it appear as though their calls are coming from trusted entities or even local numbers, removing any suspicion from victims. This tactic is crucial in gaining initial trust, as the call appears more legitimate.

4. Imitating Professional Customer Service Tone

Impersonating the tone and script of professional customer service representatives further lowers victims' defences. Victims feel more at ease, assuming they’re speaking with a legitimate support representative from a well-known tech company.

5. Escalating Urgency: Creating Panic

Scammers escalate urgency during calls by suggesting immediate action is required to prevent catastrophic consequences like data loss or security breaches. This tactic forces victims into a panic mode, where they make rash decisions without considering the legitimacy of the caller.

6. Gaining Access: Remote Control of Devices

Once trust is established, scammers guide victims to install remote access software, enabling them to take control of devices. With this control, they can steal sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers and install malicious software like spyware and keyloggers.

Why Was the Takedown of This Scam Network Possible?

The success of dismantling this scam operation was largely due to smart intelligence sharing across multiple sectors. Law enforcement, financial institutions, telecom providers, and fraud prevention companies all worked together, using real-time data to track and disrupt the scammers' activities.

Collaborative Intelligence: Disrupting Scam Networks

Real-time data sharing was crucial in tracking the scammers' movements. Digital forensics, including IP addresses, scammer scripts, and remote access tools, were tracked across jurisdictions. This collaborative intelligence allowed authorities to trace the scammers and shut down key parts of their operations.

Shared Intelligence: Essential for Dismantling Fraudulent Infrastructure

The success of this operation proves that shared intelligence is essential for dismantling large-scale scam networks. No single entity can handle these transnational operations alone, which is why collaboration between law enforcement, telecom, and financial sectors is critical.

Why Should Banks, Telcos, and Financial Institutions Care About Scam Prevention?

Tech support scams represent a growing and evolving threat to both customer security and business integrity for banks and telecom providers. Fraud moves fast and often across multiple channels, which is why shared intelligence and proactive prevention are key.

Real-Time Intelligence: Keeping Up with Rapid Fraud Evolution

Scammers move swiftly between mobile networks, messaging apps, and spoofed websites. Traditional fraud defences are often too slow. To stay ahead, telecom providers and banks need real-time intelligence and AI-driven fraud detection tools that can detect and block fraud as it occurs.

Proactive Prevention: Engaging Scammers Before They Strike

Using AI-powered conversational agents like those offered by Apate.ai, organisations can engage scammers directly, collecting intelligence in real time. By halting attacks before they reach real victims, organisations can reduce the risk of fraud significantly.

How Apate.ai Helps Prevent Scams in Real-Time

Apate.ai’s proactive approach to fraud prevention focuses on intercepting scams before they can harm victims. Our AI-powered conversational agents engage scammers through voice and text to extract valuable intelligence, which is shared with our partners, including telcos, banks, and law enforcement.

AI-Powered Agents: Engaging Scammers to Extract Intelligence

Our agents engage with fraudsters directly, gaining insights like evolving trends, scammer infrastructure, and new tactics. This intelligence is used to disrupt scams at their earliest stages, preventing attacks from reaching customers.

Real-Time Scam Disruption: Protecting Networks and Customers

By disrupting scam attacks in real-time, we protect telecom networks from scam calls and safeguard banks from fraudulent transactions. This proactive defence strategy restores trust in digital interactions and protects entire communities.

Intelligence: The Key to Dismantling Scam Networks

The recent Noida bust highlights the effectiveness of real time intelligence in dismantling scam operations. It’s not just about stopping individual scams but targeting the entire infrastructure: spoofed domains, mule accounts, malicious scripts, and stolen data pipelines.

Dismantling Scammer Infrastructure: Targeting the Whole Network

Apate.ai’s approach goes beyond identifying individual scammers; it targets the entire scam ecosystem, from fake domains to fraudulent infrastructure, in order to bring the operation down. By leveraging shared intelligence, we disrupt the scam network at its core.

Apate.ai’s mission is clear: to dismantle the business model of scammers globally.

With every intercepted scam attempt, we move closer to turning fraud into failure for good.

Q&A: Understanding the Scam Landscape

What is a tech support scam?

A tech support scam involves fraudsters impersonating a trusted tech company to convince victims that their devices are compromised. The scammers then either gain remote access or demand payment for unnecessary services.

How do banks stop scams like this?

Banks use threat intelligence platforms, transaction monitoring, and increasingly, shared scam data from partners like Apate.ai to detect patterns and block fraud at the source.

How can telecom providers help prevent voice phishing and spoofing?

By integrating AI-based detection and prevention tools into their voice and messaging networks, telecom providers can filter out suspicious traffic and work with law enforcement agencies to disrupt scam infrastructure.