mindUp researches the detection of fake online shops on hacked websites

The project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is also intended to provide insights into the necessary cooperation partners necessary for a lasting and effective fight against the internationally active fraudsters in this first phase until April 2019. The actors involved include the responsible investigating authorities, criminal prosecution, consumer protection associations, payment providers and website hosts. Especially before Christmas, consumers run the risk of ending up in online shops that look trustworthy, but are in fact operated by fraudsters to sell counterfeit goods or to pick up payment data for other fraudulent activities. The operators of these fake online shops do not shy away from hacking third-party websites in order to use their good reputation for their purposes. They use vulnerabilities of the web pages of private persons, associations, freelancers and smaller companies, in order to make, unnoticed from the operator of the pages, advertisement for the own fake online shop. mindUp crawls already the German speaking internet and can train the characteristics of the hacked pages into an AI system and strives thereby the automatic detection. After detection, the fight against this form of abuse must be coordinated. Since the criminal prosecution and information of those affected by this form of cybercrime is the responsibility of the federal states, the hacked page must be assigned regionally. A central question of the research project is the identification of the right cooperation partners and the processes connecting them in order to be able to carry out an effective fight. In the phase lasting until the end of April, partners are to be identified who, beyond the cooperation in the research project, can ensure the operation of the detection and control solution. But already in the current phase, the first website operators can be informed about problematic processes and thus consumers can be protected from misuse.